


Come Forth, Lazarus

by Edhla



Series: After the Fall [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 21:26:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edhla/pseuds/Edhla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And he that was dead came forth. A sequel to the post-Reichenbach fic, "After the Fall."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He That Was Dead

For the twelfth day in a row, the cicadas were deafening.

They were very interesting, in a purely scientific sense. Having little else to occupy his mind with while Mycroft was at work, the man once known as Sherlock Holmes had turned his formidable mind toward the study of insects. There were certainly plenty on hand here. He was spending his second Australian summer collecting specimens of the shrieking cicadas that congregated in the trees along the fenceline of the house.

It was all to do with finding new things; if not criminals, then lesser things would have to do. Sherlock had always seen complexity in the most humble of creatures. Cicadas were really wonderfully designed and fascinating to study, and he had no idea why they seemed to be taken for granted in this country. They were far more interesting than cricket games, and reality television, and whatever else was flavour of the month just now.

The colonials did, to do them credit, have some interesting names for these creatures: _Black Friday, Dark Sage, Forest Demon, Whisky Drinker, Yellow Monday._ The cicadas spent most of their lives underground, dormant. And then, at the very last, they broke forth from the earth and from their dull brown pupae shells. The males climbed into the trees and screamed for a mate. The females responded. Birth. Sex. Death. Sherlock had never understood Mycroft's profound opinion that they were "quite insignificant."

Still, they weren't the brightest of creatures in the animal kingdom, and ridiculously easy to catch, provided you knew how to climb a tree and didn't mind the occasional bite. The chirping turquoise cicada that Sherlock now brought into the house, cradled gently in his cupped hands, was a new find. This one they called _Blue Moon._ Sherlock placed it in its terrarium and watched it flutter about confusedly for a few seconds, before finding footing on a small branch that he'd placed in there for it. Sherlock watched it bring itself at ease, smiling slightly; he drew out a notepad and pen and, from memory, began to scribble the specifics:

Species: _Australasiae_

Genus: _Cyclochila_

Subfamily: _Cicadinae_

Family: _Cicadidae_

Superfamily: _Cicadoidea_

Infraorder: _Cicadomorpha_

Suborder: _Auchenorryncha_

Order: _Hemiptera_

Class: _Insecta_

Subphylum: _Uniramia_

Phylum: _Arthopoda_

Kingdom: _Animalia_

He'd keep this one alive. Cicadas only lived a few weeks, anyway- there'd be plenty of opportunity to pin it to an identification card when it died of natural causes. Besides, he wanted to experiment with whether cicadas reacted to noises at various different frequencies, and to examine the limitations of their sight.

Certainly they had great limitations regarding their intelligence. This beautiful blue creature was probably going to give itself an early death, bashing itself against the glass walls of the terrarium.

But then, it was natural for all things sentient to blindly try to escape captivity.

Sherlock was interrupted in these musings by a knock on the door- one that was not expected, and not entirely welcome. Generally, Mycroft dealt with any visitors; his brother was the ghost of the house, sometimes perceived, rarely seen, never heard. The precaution was probably excessive- Mycroft's little brother Sherlock had committed suicide nearly three years ago, and he was Christian Yearsley now. But then… one couldn't be too careful.

Christian Yearsley went reluctantly to answer the door. So reluctantly, in fact, that by the time he opened it, it was just in time to see the Australia Post van drive away. But not without leaving a long blue, red and white envelope wedged under the mat; Sherlock picked it up, turned it over, and froze.

_Sherlock Holmes_

_19 St James Place_

_Mosman 2088_

_NSW_

_Australia._

* * *

He felt the jolt like a blow to the chest, and stood staring at the envelope in heart-thudding silence for a few seconds. It was postmarked from London.

The only person in London who knew- or was _supposed to know-_ that Sherlock Holmes was not buried there was quiet, self-effacing Molly Hooper. Sherlock had not seen or heard from her her since his sudden flight from home over a year ago. And this was not her handwriting.

He ripped the envelope open in haste- that it could be poisoned or booby-trapped seemed not to occur to him. It was neither. Inside was a small scrap of paper, and on it, written in stark, swooping black lines:

_John 11:44._

Sherlock Holmes was, on the dotted line, Church of England. But both he and his brother were casually atheist. There had been a Bible at Baker Street, for reference; just as there had been a Qu'uran, a Book of Mormon, a Book of the Dead, and several other religious texts. One had to keep these things handy for research purposes.

Sherlock had a feeling that there was no Bible in this house. He'd certainly never seen one. The solution was immediate and obvious; he pulled out his phone and entered the reference into Google. Google obliged, instantly spitting out thousands of hits. He opened the first:

_And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go._


	2. Joy Complete

_He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled._

**_-_ John 3:29**

* * *

"Oh come _on._ Dr and Mrs Watson, I'm arresting you on charges of nauseating public displays of affection. You do not have to say anything, but- actually, I'd prefer it if you didn't, to be honest."

Lestrade was highly amused that he'd just caught grown adults, two of the most serious and steady people he knew, enthusiastically snogging in the Barts lab like a pair of teenagers. They'd both been so into each other, and the moment, that they hadn't even noticed his less-than-silent entrance. When he'd spoken they'd both startled, and he'd never seen any man get his hands out of his wife's shirt faster.

"How was the honeymoon, guys?"

"Greg!" Molly slid down from where she was perched up on the bench and ran over to him. She'd always been affectionate with Lestrade, in her own quiet way, but she'd never run over to hug him before. "Oh, it was lovely," she gushed.

Lestrade exchanged a look with John. "When did you two get back?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"And you're at _work_?"

Molly blushed. "I… had things I couldn't leave any longer," she said, which was her way of admitting she was just a bit of a workaholic. "But it's so good to see you, you'll have to come over soon," she continued. "We'll have dinner- or something- and you can hear all about the trip…"

"And see seven thousand photographs," John put in. "I'm not exaggerating. Literally seven thousand, and I never so much as picked up the camera for the whole trip. This one-" he put one arm around her waist and kissed her cheek- "took a hundred and ninety pictures of the Acropolis."

John was about as respectful of ancient history as he was of art, and regarded the Acropolis and everything on it as a pile of dusty bricks and pillars. But Molly was interested in that sort of thing, so John had got horribly sunburned wandering around with her for six hours.

"Julie took four hundred pictures on our honeymoon," Lestrade offered, without bitterness. Julie was no longer much of a sore point- not now that there was a Melissa in his life. "Doesn't sound like much compared to what seems to be Molly's latest hobby, except when you remember this was the days of film. And we only went to _Bath._ "

"Why Bath?"

"Why not Bath?"

"So many reasons, I don't even know where to start."

"Agreed. But seriously, it was Bath because we were dirt poor, and two weeks at Julie's Aunt Susan's was all we could afford. Not _all_ of us are doctors who get to do a Grand Tour when we get married."

John smiled. "I'm pretty sure you're well above the poverty line these days. When you and Melissa get married, you can do your own Grand Tour."

"Not sure we'd be interested in one, while Hell is busy freezing over," he answered. "I told you. _Never_ _again_."

"She'll want to get married, Greg."

"Well, that's going to be awfully unfortunate for her, isn't it," was Lestrade's cheerful response. "Unless she wants to get married to someone else. Don't give me that smug I-know-better look. I'm not going to change my mind just 'cause _you_ like being married."

Lestrade had been dating Melissa Brennan for the past year- they'd met at a Yard Christmas party and hit it off, despite the fact that she was almost half Lestrade's age. John was still getting mileage out of teasing Greg about this, especially when he heard that when Melissa had met Hayley for the first time, they had bonded instantly over the fact that they had matching handbags.

"So what are you doing here, anyway?" John wanted to know. "Case?"

Immediately, the mood changed. Lestrade wasn't smiling. He put his hands in his pockets and shuffled.

"Er, actually, I came to see you, John," he muttered. "I knew Molly was going to be here, made a deduction…" he flinched. John didn't know it yet, but this was no time for an expression like "deduction." "I thought this was something you should hear from me in person."

John was looking at him in vague concern and instinctively curling his left hand, something he only did when he was stressed. "What? Has something happened…?"

Not Mrs Hudson- they'd collected Toby from 221A the night before (and he was highly put out and yet to "speak" to either of them for apparently abandoning him.) And John was Mrs Hudson's offical next of kin- if something had happened, he would probably know about it before Lestrade did. Not Harry either- they'd talked on the phone half an hour ago. Molly was by now looking from Lestrade to John and back again, like a woman watching a tennis match.

"Oh well, um, I'd better leave you boys to it…" she muttered.

"No, please…" John was almost begging. Molly, taken aback by his tone, sought out his hand and squeezed it. "Having secrets isn't the best start to things. Stay. Please. Unless… I don't know… unless there are legal reasons why Molly can't hear this?"

Lestrade shook his head. "No," he said. "Nothing like that. But, um. Probably wouldn't be a good idea for this to go any further than us three. It's about Claudette Bruhl."

John blinked. Claudette Br- _oh._ Oh God. The ambassador's daughter. The one who'd been kidnapped…

"What about her? Is she okay?"

Lestrade sighed. "You remember she wouldn't speak after it happened…" he wasn't keen on elaborating what "it" was either. "Especially not after her brother died."

This had happened three days after Sherlock's suicide, so John barely remembered that part of things. Mercury poisoning. A horrible way for a child to die. "She's not _still_ mute?"

Lestrade shook his head. "Not technically mute- makes sounds, but no words. Or rather she didn't, up until four weeks ago. She started talking during a therapy session, about the man who kidnapped her."

John felt a chill spread across his chest. He swallowed. "And?"

"And – well remembering it was over two years ago now, she was traumatised at the time, and all the rest- the man she described bears no resemblance to Sherlock at all."

Silence. Molly tightened her grip on John's hand, stroking her thumb along his.

"But that- that makes no sense," John stammered. "I mean- obviously, it wasn't Sherlock… But I was always assuming the kidnapper looked like Sherlock… something about him…"

"So was I. I think we all were."

"So, but, why-"

"Easiest trick in the book. Apparently she was shown a photograph of Sherlock and told all sorts of horrible things about him. Including that he was going to kill her, her brother and her father… she was _seven,_ John. She had no idea what was really happening. When Hayley was seven, she still believed you could dig a hole in the garden and end up in China."

"I- I don't blame Claudette…" John gently pulled his hand out of Molly's and sat down in the nearest chair. "Greg, is she in danger?"

"… Danger…?"

"Moriarty's plan had to hinge on her screaming when she saw Sherlock and not ever saying why… not describing the man who kidnapped her. Now she _has_ …"

"I don't think that matters much now," Lestrade said in a low voice. "Moriarty… got what he wanted. And now he can't be found. I think it's pretty safe to say he's dead, or committed, or incarcerated."

"It's never safe to assume anything about that man," John responded bitterly. Lestrade paused.

"Okay," he said, realising he was treading on dangerous ground. Sherlock may have technically died by his own hand, but absolutely nothing was going to erase John's conviction that, between them, Mycroft and Moriarty had murdered him. "As for the man who took the children, Claudette described him pretty well. He was distinctive. I can say we almost certainly found him dead in Highgate Cemetery nearly two years ago, with his eyes gouged out."

Neither John nor Lestrade were looking at Molly, who suddenly made a brief coughing sound and rushed for the door. Lestrade blinked, then looked across at John. "Is she okay?"

"She's going to end up in bloody hospital…" John muttered, but it was mostly to himself. He sighed, and then smiled. "Yeah, she's okay. Mentioning the gouged eyes probably wasn't your finest moment. Um. We got some good news just this morning, actually…"

Lestrade stared. _"What?_ You're joking."

"August. And most people say 'congratulations', or something like that."

"Congratulations," Lestrade responded distractedly. " _Most_ people give it a while before they start a family, you know. They usually at least wait until after their honeymoon."

"Yeah, well, it was a very long honeymoon," John responded. "We discussed this months ago- decided we didn't really have time to muck around."

"Molly's only thirty."

"She also wants five kids."

Lestrade's jaw dropped. "Good God. Five? You're not going _along_ with that, are you?"

"I like kids. We'll see. I don't know if she'll be keen on doing this another four times. Anyway, we weren't really expecting things to work out so quickly in our favour..." John stood up. "Sorry, Greg. I really should see if she's okay."

The women's toilets were a long way down the corridor; Molly hadn't quite made it there and had made use of the disabled toilet instead, so urgently that she hadn't had time to properly close the sliding door. John knocked on it.

"I'm going to be bossy about this," he announced. "I really, really don't like you sitting on a dirty floor throwing up into a public toilet, Molly. Doctor's wives should be using more sanitary, classy things to vomit in... like buckets. Or at least sinks."

"I'm not having much fun with this, either," she commented, trying to smile and dabbing at her streaming eyes with a wad of toilet paper.

"I'll bet. You look absolutely miserable." He shut and locked the door behind him and sat down beside her on the floor, putting one arm around her shoulders. "At the risk of making this all about me, you know I feel like a real bastard about this," he commented.

"Oh, it's not your fault…"

"Hey, I certainly hope it's at least _half_ my fault," he protested. She smiled.

"Yes, okay, it's half your fault. I don't know what I'm going to do about work, when even _thinking_ about half of my job does this to me. I was hoping not to have to take my maternity leave for another six months."

"We'll figure something out. The last thing I want you to worry about is work." He paused. "Or any of this business about Claudette Bruhl."

"That poor little girl."

"I know. But she's getting the help she needs, and time is pretty kind to kids. Like Greg said, I don't think she's in any danger. And… I'm not sure the news changes much from where we are, you know? We already know Sherlock didn't kidnap her. This is just confirming it, so that we can all move on a little- including Claudette."

She smiled tiredly, then nodded. "Yes."

John kissed her forehead briefly. "I love you, Lolly…" he winced. "Even though your breath smells like vomit just now, and it's _really_ not attractive. You're not getting a real kiss until you brush your teeth."

She laughed a little, and wiped her eyes again. John stood up and held his hands out to her. "Come on," he said. "Let's go home. We've got a Christmas tree to put up. Well, _I_ do. You have a bucket to throw up in."


	3. Johannes Passion

_Suchet ihr denn mich, so lasset diese gehen!"_

 

(If you are looking for me, then let these ones go!")

**\- Bach, Johannes-Passion BWV 245.**

* * *

Well, this was rather a curious turn of events.

A threat- undoubtedly- the name _Sherlock Holmes_ on the envelope proclaimed it clearly.

A threat from whom? Why?

Leaving his turquoise cicada screaming frantically in its clear enclosure, Sherlock took the envelope and its contents up to his bedroom to examine it more closely.

Standard British Air Mail envelope, the sort you might buy from any post office or supermarket. No useful leads there- except that the sender was the sort of person who would buy an envelope from a post office or a supermarket. Not really helpful.

No residue of any kind, and there seemed to be no fingerprints on hand, though he didn't have the Disulfur Dinitride to test that properly. He doubted the sender was foolish enough to handle the paper without gloves.

Smelled like… an envelope. Quite normal.

The handwriting was the same inside the envelope and out. A man's handwriting, almost certainly. Right-handed. Aged mid-thirties to mid-forties and educated at a grammar school, based on the shape of the lettering and the flow of the script. The aggressive, swooping vertical lines suggested someone highly organised, almost pedantically so, but with latent rage issues.

Expensive pen- a Caran d'Ache Leman fountain pen, medium-nib, with Herbin Pearl Noire ink. But the paper was cheap- manufactured in China, and available at a couple of hundred different UK locations- and seemed an odd choice for someone who would spend over three hundred pounds on a fountain pen.

Someone with a pen fetish, or someone who liked to play games. Sherlock's money was on the latter.

He threw the letter aside and flopped down on the bed. It was another hot day- not ideal thinking weather. After a few seconds he rose again, darted across to the desk with unnecessary urgency, and fished a packet of cigarettes out of the top drawer.

Some problems couldn't be worked through with patches- not even three of them.

* * *

Toby was swarming all over John's lap, meowing almost frantically, and John was completely ignoring him.

This alone told Molly, who had come into the living room to ask him if he wanted a cup of tea, that something was wrong. His left hand was clenched; in his right he held what looked to be a Christmas card.

"John?" she ventured gently. He snapped back to reality and glanced up at her, but she could see that he was pale and drawn.

"Yeah," he said vaguely. "Sorry."

"What's wrong?"

John momentarily contemplated saying "nothing", and then changed his mind. When Molly asked what was wrong, she didn't take "nothing" for an answer.

"Got a card," he explained, handing it over to her. A flowing, feminine hand in ballpoint pen: _Dear Captain Watson: you are in our thoughts, this Christmas and always. God bless you. Phoebe and Joseph Harris and family xx._

"Harris?" she asked quietly. "Josh's parents?"

John rarely mentioned Josh Harris, who had been flown home from Afghanistan in a coffin draped with the Union Jack. He'd told her once, just before they'd become engaged, and unaware that she'd known the basics since that first New Years Eve they'd spent in each other's company. John's story was, understandably, even more vague and disjointed than Bill's version of it. He'd run out under fire and been shot. Josh Harris had been killed, and he had been _nearly_ killed. Further details were, he explained, something of a blur.

"They've never sent me a Christmas card before," John explained. "I- didn't think they'd know where to send one. Do you-"

"I have no idea," she responded gently. "Perhaps it was Bill who told them. I'm sorry."

His face twitched briefly into that pinched smile that she secretly hated- she saw so much pain in it. "Not your fault," he commented, but there was strain in his voice. "Just… well. Just not what I really wanted to think about, ten days before Christmas."

She shook her head. "But you'd be thinking about it anyway, John. Maybe not… so much. But I think there's something about Christmas that… makes you think about things like that."

Absolutely nothing got past Molly these days. She gently opened John's left hand and retrieved from it a silver medal- a cross on a wreath of laurel leaves. CGC.

Conspicuous Gallantry Cross.

"They gave you this," she said softly, reading John's name, rank and unit engraved on the back. "For what you did that day."

John flinched and shook his head. "Molly, when I woke up in hospital after it had all happened, people were all talking about how I'd bravely gone and tried to save the kid's life, and been shot in an act of brotherly sacrifice. They were calling me a _hero_. But I- I remember one thing really clearly. When I broke cover, I wasn't trying to save Harris."

"Weren't you?"

Molly sounded remarkably calm- and not in the least disappointed in him. It threw him for a few seconds, and he struggled to explain himself.

"No," he said. "No, he… he was already dead. I knew that." _Very dead. Don't ask me how I knew._

Molly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his hair thoughtfully. "What were you doing, then?" she asked him.

"I was trying to get to his _fucking radio."_

She was silent for a few seconds.

"Sorry," he blurted out.

"I've heard the word 'fuck' before, John," she reminded him gently. "So you- you feel like you don't deserve praise for what you did that day."

"Why on earth would I?"

She was looking at the medal again. It looked brand new- never worn, hardly touched. He had never, in the time she had known him, mentioned even owning it. The previous June, though, she'd found it in a box under the bed while she was spring cleaning. She'd put it back in its place, and never mentioned it to John.

"Why were you trying to retrieve his radio?" she suddenly asked.

He looked at her in confusion for a few seconds. "Well- because I- mine wasn't working. I was trying to call for backup…"

"So you were trying to get help for your unit."

"… Yes."

She paused thoughtfully, clearly reasoning something out in her head. Twice she hesitated; finally, she made the words come out. "So you feel so bad, because people think you went to save one man. But you actually went to save many. Is that such a terrible thing?"

He looked at her in wonder for a few seconds and she realised, with a pang, that for nearly five years, it had not once occurred to John that he had attempted to do something _more_ noble and self-sacrificing than he was given credit for.

"You're a good person, John," she told him.

"Am I?" he demanded quickly, rubbing his eyes wearily. "Then why do I feel like such a _bad_ one?"

Molly knew the reason, but this was no time to bring it up. She put the medal back in his hand, and closed his fingers around it. "Do you have a return address for the Harrises?" she asked him instead.

"Yes."

"I'll write and send them a card in return, John, from both of us. And then, after Christmas, perhaps we could go out and see them, and you can explain about the radio. It'll help."

"Will it?"

"Yes. I don't think they'll be as disappointed in you as you think they'll be." She still had her arms around him, and kissed him again. "Do you know what else will help you?" she asked in brighter tones.

"What?"

"It's the fifteenth. _It's kitten day."_

* * *

"Sherlock Holmes, if you don't shut that bloody thing up, I'll render it useless to you, even as a _specimen."_

"It's a cicada, what do you expect it to do?" Sherlock responded defensively.

"Forgive me for being slightly traditional about this, but I expect locusts to live outside, and not on my dining room table."

" _Our_ dining room table," Sherlock corrected him, sighing and moving the terrarium over to the coffee table beside his armchair. Back home, Linwood had definitely been Mycroft's house- left to him in Mummy's will, as a matter of fact. But this nameless residence was rented, half of it came out of Sherlock's inheritance, and he wasn't prepared to let Mycroft forget that.

"Now, mind you're very quiet," he told the cicada facetiously. "It seems my poor brother is incapable of studying with a bit of background noise. Oddly, I've never had that problem." He resumed his phone search, though not without an eye to seeing how Mycroft was taking the jab.

"Why, what are _you_ doing?"

"I'll happily tell you, when you let me know what _you're_ working on."

Mycroft sighed and rolled his eyes. "You know I can't, Sherlock."

"Well, then."

There was no way for Sherlock to tell Mycroft that he was reading the Bible on his phone. The Gospel of John, as a matter of fact. Five different translations.

* * *

 _1_ Now a certain _man_ was sick, _named_ Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.

 _2_ (It was _that_ Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)

 _3_ Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.

 _4_ When Jesus heard _that,_ he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

 _5_ Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus…

* * *

Lazarus was himself- even Sherlock didn't have the arrogance to equate himself with Jesus Christ, not for the purposes of _this_ story.

Mary.

Sherlock leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. That had to be important- it _had_ to be. Mary? Did he know anyone by that name? There was nobody in his family by that name. He _had_ once had a client named Mary Donnell, but she had been an infuriatingly dense circus performer who'd been attacked by a lion, and he couldn't for the life of him see how she was connected to the case at hand.

"Sherlock, that _cicada…"_

"Answer me a question, and I'll let it go," Sherlock suddenly told him. Mycroft raised his eyebrow.

"You know I can't answ-"

"Oh for God's sake, I don't _care_ what you're working on," Sherlock returned, rolling his eyes. He went to the terrarium and closed his hand gently over the cicada, drawing it out and taking it over to the window. He opened the latch and slid it up with his other hand, then held his closed hand through it. Mycroft sighed.

"What's the question?"

"Who do we know by the name of Mary?"

"Why?"

" _I'm_ asking the question."

Mycroft paused for a few seconds. "We have a third cousin on the Devereaux side named Mary," he volunteered. "But whatever the reason you're asking, I doubt she has much to do with matters."

"No-one else?"

"I suspect, but don't know for certain, that Molly Hooper's birth name might be Mary. It's a nickname among… certain types. Now for God's sake…"

Sherlock opened his hand, and watched regretfully as the brilliant little cicada flew off into the night. Oh, well. It wouldn't be too difficult to catch another, and Mycroft had yet to find that Funnel-Web spider he was keeping in a jar in the bathroom. He scratched the three or four little bites on the palm of his hand absently. Gratitude was apparently unknown among the insect kingdom.

Molly Hooper. _Mary_ Hooper?

That was a lead- yes, a _definite_ lead. He couldn't then ask Mycroft whether they knew anyone by the name of Martha- that would raise his brother's suspicions far too high. But with his thoughts squarely back to London, to Barts and Baker Street…

Yes, he _had_ had a client named Martha, once. Or rather, he'd been hired by a Martha to help out with the case of her husband, who stood accused of the murders of seven women.

He'd flown to Florida for that one- fascinating case. The accused had been found guilty, which was exactly the result Sherlock had wanted, and executed by lethal injection. His name had been Rex Hudson. His wife was an Englishwoman: Martha Louise Hudson, now of 221A Baker Street.

Unbidden, Bach's _Johannes-Passion_ re-entered Sherlock's head in a glorious rush. Johannes-Passion.

The Passion of St John.

_The Suffering of John._

Molly. Mrs Hudson. John.


	4. Bread Upon the Waters

 

_Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days._

**\- Ecclesiastes 11:1**

* * *

It really had been very sweet of Mrs Hudson to offer to look after Toby for the entire eight weeks that John and Molly had been on their honeymoon.

Unfortunately, it had backfired. Mrs Hudson had become a little _too_ attached to Toby; John had seen sadness and longing in her face the night they had come to take him home again. She was lonely.

Before the taxi had even turned into their street, it had been decided. Mrs Hudson wanted- no, _needed-_ a cat. And as far as John was concerned, if Mrs Hudson wanted or needed a cat, she would have one.

Happily, Melissa Brennan's cat had not long ago had the unbelievable number of eight kittens. Well, happily for just about everyone except Greg. He'd recently taken the big step of asking Melissa- and Smoky- to move in; Melissa had neglected to mention the upcoming kittens. For all that he liked cats, Smoky included, Greg had not been overly impressed to wander into his own laundry at five in the morning and find eight newborn kittens in the sink.

That had been weeks ago, though. Today was kitten day- the kittens' eight-week birthday and the arranged day that John and Molly were going to pick up Mrs Hudson's Christmas present, to be stowed at their house for the ten days between now and Christmas.

"Remember," John said tolerantly once Molly was warm and nestled in the back of the cab, and they were on their way to Greg and Melissa's. "Remember that we talked about this."

"Yes."

"We're getting a kitten for _Mrs Hudson_."

"Yes."

"Not ourselves."

"No, not ourselves."

"Because I know kittens are cute, but they grow up to be cats, and they cost money and need to be looked after, and Toby's quite enough for one household, don't you think?"

"Absolutely."

"So _please_ don't instantly melt into some puddle of kitten-loving goo the second you- and you're not even _listening_ to me, are you?"

Molly's new husband was sometimes grumpy and inclined to nag and fuss, but she had a secret weapon up her sleeve. She demonstrated it now by snuggling into John's side.

"That isn't even fair," he protested, but he was smiling. "Never picked you as the manipulative type."

"I'm not being manipulative," she protested mildly. "And I never said a word about wanting a kitten of our own. I know that we don't… _oh_."

"Oh, what?" he repeated in alarm. It was a little unnecessary. He knew the look that had just passed across Molly's face- knew it far too well.

"Excuse me," he leaned forward to address the driver. "Pull over, please."

"… What?"

"I said, could you pull over, please? _Now_?"

This was not the first time Molly had been taken ill mid-transit. Unfortunately, the last time this had happened, they'd been in a Parisian taxi. Whether John's French was substandard, or whether the taxi driver had been passive-aggressive about it, the end result was that Molly had had no other choice but to throw up into John's cupped hands.

Which had _sort of_ minimalised the overall damage to the back of the cab.

Beyond the actual vomit, poor John had then had to deal with an extremely embarrassed and distressed wife, a cleaning bill, and a very pissed off cabbie yelling at him in French. And while John's conversational French probably _was_ substandard, he definitely knew what _salope_ meant, and he did _not_ appreciate Molly being referred to as one. Said cabbie probably had no idea how very close he'd come to losing teeth that afternoon.

 _This_ cabbie, it seemed, had more common sense, or at least recognised the urgency in John's tone. He pulled over into a loading zone, and John leaned over to push Molly's door open just in time.

"That better not have got anywhere in my cab," he groused as John got out the nearside door to walk around.

"She's got pretty good aim by this time," was the wry response. "… Nope, missed the cab entirely," he confirmed. He produced a tissue from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Molly, who was by now looking more embarrassed than ill.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she blurted out.

"You're under house arrest until September," John told her lightly. "No harm done to anything but yourself, so you needn't be sorry. Are you okay?"

"I am _so_ tired of this already."

It was the very first time Molly had ever complained about her almost nonstop nausea.

"Oh, Molly. I _did_ tell you that you could have stayed at home, if you weren't feeling up to it," John reminded her gently, brushing a lock of hair off her damp forehead.

"Yes. But… _kittens."_

* * *

Sherlock had retreated to his bedroom hours before, but it was clear from the scent of tobacco smoke that he wasn't asleep. Mycroft had finished his reports for that evening, and was on his way to his own bedroom, when he paused and detoured to the room at the end of the first floor hall.

Mycroft, like his brother, wasn't big on knocking or privacy. He did tap on Sherlock's bedroom door before opening it, but only be a margin of three or so seconds. He found Sherlock lying on the bed. Despite the heat, he was wearing silk pyjamas and, as Mycroft had suspected, he was smoking.

"Generally speaking, a knock is meant to be a supplication, and not a herald of one's arrival," Sherlock told him, without even bothering to look up. He blew several smoke rings toward the ceiling.

"Out of curiosity, are you _trying_ to burn the house down?" Mycroft wanted to know sourly. "Because if you are, I'm sure I could find some accelerants to assist you. If you're going to do something, it's always worth doing it well, I find."

"Anyone who can fall asleep while smoking simply doesn't enjoy it very much, Mycroft. I'm sure I could never be so horribly inattentive." Sherlock sat up, ran his hands through his rampant curls- he needed a haircut, badly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Why is there a live specimen of one of the world's most venomous spiders in our bathroom?"

"Well, where else do you expect me to put it?" Sherlock honestly wanted to know. "I found it near the fence the other day. I'm experimenting with whether Funnel-Web spiders are able to develop Pavlovian responses to reward-and-punishment."

"Are they?" Mycroft sounded interested. Cicadas were a non-event- quite insignificant, indeed- but there was something macabre about spiders that appealed to him.

"No, sadly," Sherlock sighed. "They're quite, quite stupid. However, I must admit I've become fascinated with how aggressive they are. I'm waiting to see how long that one will take to starve to death, since I can hardly release it anywhere near human beings."

"Yes, I'd be grateful if you made sure of that."

Silence. Sherlock sighed again.

"Mycroft, I'm waiting," he said. "Why are you invading my room at ten to midnight, discussing a spider that I know you found four hours ago?"

"I'm concerned about you, if you must know. You're unhappy," he commented blandly.

Sherlock coughed slightly and stubbed his cigarette out, but made no response.

"In fact," Mycroft hesitated slightly, "I believe that something has recently come to light that's made you afraid."

"Your belief in your own powers of deduction becomes over-confidence so easily, Mycroft."

"What are you afraid of?"

Sherlock paused in the darkness for a few seconds.

"Spending the rest of my life in this horrible, over-heated, spider-infested country," he finally retorted. It was meant to be flippant, but Mycroft instantly recognised that there was truth in his words. Sherlock _was_ afraid of this. "Living out my days and nights in this house, with you fluttering about me like an old woman, and wanting us to have brotherly heart-to-heart discussions all the time."

" _Sherlock_. When I ask you a serious question, I only ask that you return me a serious answer. You know I'm going to find out anyhow."

"Then I would absolutely hate to rob you of your chance to discover things for yourself, and reaffirm that you're much more clever than I am," Sherlock told him snippily. "Isn't that the most exciting part for you?"

Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Why do you always have to be so resentful? I ask only-"

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm tired. Good night."

Sherlock curled up into a ball and rolled over to face the wall. Mycroft rolled his eyes and rose. This conversation was definitely over.

When he was sure Mycroft had retreated to his own bedroom, Sherlock brought out his phone again. But this time he was not searching Bible verses.

He was searching airfares and flight itineraries.

* * *

Greg was, as usual, at work. Melissa was very much at the house, and very much her chatty, social-butterfly self. Both John and Molly had always liked her, though she and Greg were May and December, and a wonderfully odd couple. Underneath her impeccable makeup and fashionable clothing and inclinations toward giggling, though, Melissa was a clever and highly educated young woman, who held down a highly qualified an demanding job. It wasn't _such_ an odd thing that Greg would be drawn to her.

That she was twenty-seven, blonde and pretty, helped too.

She was all smiles at the door, and happily let them into the house. Molly's pregnancy was a subject that Greg had found out about by accident, and not to be discussed with anyone else- even Harry- for another six weeks or so; as such, it was tea for all and very quickly down to the very important business of kittens.

"Eight weeks today," Melissa reassured them, "and they're all litter-trained and not doing anything horribly antisocial or weird. Come have a look- they should be in the laundry."

"Should be?"

"She keeps trying to put them in our bed," she explained, leading them down the hall. "Greg found them in there the other day. God, I wish I'd had my phone on hand. His _face…"_

"Remember what I said," John warned gently as they followed Melissa out to the laundry. "We've already got one cat. We don't need any more. And anyway, Toby will be jeal-"

They'd reached the little laundry by this time. John had just laid eyes on the petite little slate-coloured mother cat, and the squeaking pile of assorted white and grey kittens snuggled into her.

"Oh, they're so cute!" Molly exclaimed. "Aren't they, John?"

 _Oh, bloody bugger shit,_ John thought. _I want one!_

"They're okay," was what he said.

"Are you after a particular gender, or are you going more for colour?" Melissa asked, casually picking up the nearest one, a grey with white socks. She inspected it, and then handed it over to a delighted Molly. "That one's a girl," she said. "I'm pretty sure she's the little bugger who keeps escaping the laundry all the time."

"Not in her favour," John remarked, imagining Mrs Hudson chasing the kitten up the flat stairs sixteen times a day, or tripping over her in the hall.

"Well, this one's less of an escape artist," Melissa now picked up a squeaking white kitten, while Smoky looked on in casual unconcern with her huge orange eyes. "This one's a boy. And loud. Greg likes this one. Says he's got a lot of personality. Runt of the litter, but I think everyone knows he's the boss."

As she put the noisy kitten into John's extremely reluctant arms, John suddenly remembered that Melissa was, by profession, a criminal psychologist.

 _Dammit._ She knew. She _absolutely knew…_

* * *

"I love you so much, John," Molly gushed as they got into the waiting cab, gazing over at the carrier John was holding in his lap and poking her finger through the bars at the kittens inside.

John made a noble attempt at looking very put out.

"Just for God's sake, Mrs Watson, don't ever try to convince me to do something illegal," he begged. "This whole Svengali thing you have over me is more than a little bit creepy sometimes. And I'm not refereeing any cat fights."

"Oh, I'm sure Toby will get along just fine with little Casper," she cooed at her newest family member. He was just then pushing around his sister, she of the escape artistry and the white socks.

"Yeah, well, if Toby takes one look at him and rips him to shreds, I'm coming down on Toby's side."

She smiled. "I wouldn't expect you to do anything else," she said. "Though, you know, Toby _is_ going to have to learn that he's not going to be an only child forever. I'd hate for him to be jealous of the baby. I think Casper might be the best thing we could get for him."

"You mean, the best thing we could get for _you,"_ John teased. "Just remember, he's your kitten and I reserve all rights to ignore him. Merry Christmas."

"I love you."

"I love you, too. Please, for God's sake, _don't_ ask for a puppy."

Molly snuggled back down into John's side.


	5. Justice Run Down

_Let justice run down like waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream._

**\- Amos 5:24**

* * *

_It wasn't Sherlock._

The news had hit Sally Donovan like an express train- Lestrade told her that morning, not without a certain tone of told-you-so triumph. Sherlock was innocent. The kidnapping case was being reopened, even though the real perpetrator was thought to be dead. The Yard had buggered up the case once, they weren't going to risk pinning blame on the wrong man again.

Sally Donovan had had absolutely no love for "Freak". But she had at least… she really had _thought_ …

"Sir," was her first coherent sentence after receiving the news. "The suicide case."

"Sherlock's?"

"Yes."

"What about it?"

"Are they re-examining it?"

Lestrade had come to Donovan's desk to tell her the news, rather than his usual practice of dragging her out to his office; she suspected that he wanted everyone else in the open-plan office to hear how wrong she'd been. At her question, he looked confused for a few seconds. "Not that I know of," he responded, crossing his arms. "Why would they?"

"Because if Sherlock Holmes didn't kidnap those kids, why would he commit suicide?"

"Any number of reasons," Lestrade returned coldy, "the pressure of being framed for something he didn't do, perhaps. Does it make him any less dead?"

She shook her head in frustration. "Sir, with respect- you're seeing this as a friend, not as a detective. It _does_ matter. He may not have… done it himself."

"He did. John watched him do it, and I had all the fun of writing out his statement to the effect," Lestrade responded bitterly. "Or are you now going to accuse John Watson of murdering him?"

He had a twinge of misgivings. Had he just given her the idea to accuse John…?

"No," she responded. Even at her most suspicious and cynical, this was one thing she wasn't even prepared to consider. She felt that there was simply no way John Watson would have, or could have, faked the nervous breakdown he'd had after Sherlock's death. "No, I didn't mean that. But this is a suspicious death-"

"The coroner disagrees with you."

"Sir, I need to see the police files into Sherlock Holmes' death. And the autopsy files, if they're available. If I could just have a look…"

Lestrade shook his head in a way that Donovan had come to learn was final. "I can't do it, Donovan. I like my badge, and I'd much prefer to keep it. Anyway, I don't have access to anything related to Sherlock Holmes. You know I don't."

This part, at least, was true, and Donovan knew it. Lestrade had come so close to losing his badge over the revelation of just how much he'd relied on Sherlock Holmes professionally. Every single case that Lestrade had ever worked on- even before he'd met Sherlock- had been examined from top to bottom, looking for any evidence that he was on the take or unethical in some other way. While no evidence was found, Lestrade knew he was being watched even yet; and he certainly had no professional access to any of the files concerning Sherlock's suicide.

Donovan nodded, as if she were reasoning something out in her head. "Okay," she said. "Okay, I understand that you don't have access to those files, Sir. Who does?"

Lestrade paused, looking at her with a combination of chilliness and sheer confusion. "Just why are you so obsessed with this case? Sherlock's dead."

"And he might be dead because I accused him of something he didn't do," she responded, in such matter-of-fact tones that Lestrade flinched. "I became a police officer because I believe in justice for everyone. Even Sherlock Holmes. I didn't like him, but he didn't kidnap and poison those kids, and that's a fact. Sir, is there anyone else who can show me those files?"

Lestrade sighed. "All right. My office, now."

She followed him into his office and shut the door behind her; he rummaged through the second drawer of his desk after official notepaper. He had a lifelong habit of shoving various things into whatever drawer was most handy at the time- or the glove compartment, if he was in his car- and it was half a minute of searching through everything from accident reports to Chinese menus before he located what he wanted, pulled it out, and then repeated the process looking for a pen that worked.

"Gregson owes me a favour," he informed Donovan as he finally was able to start scribbling away. "He's in the office around two this afternoon, or he should be, according to his schedule. Take this to him." He tore the paper off the pad, folded it twice, and handed it over to her. "And if he says no, then let that be the end of this. Okay?"

"Thank you, Sir."

"Shut up and go back to your desk, before I change my mind and take that off you."

* * *

"No, Molly."

"But-"

"No, let them sort it out between them."

Toby was indifferent toward the unnamed female kitten- John and Molly were occasionally referring to her as _Smudge,_ though her official name would be Mrs Hudson's choice. But Toby seemed to understand that Casper was different. Casper was _staying._

John had just released Casper onto the living room floor to wander around and get his bearings for the first time. Toby's reaction was as profound as it was eloquent- he turned his back on the newcomer with scorn and washed his face with one paw, as if the white kitten didn't exist.

Casper, seeing a new cat he didn't recognise, stopped short in shock. The fur on his back stood on end, and he hissed softly; Molly had gone to pick him up before John had gently intervened. Toby, meanwhile, was still washing his face. Kitten? What kitten? He didn't notice any kitten.

Three seconds later, Casper sprang.

It was a well-executed launch, but Toby was prepared for it. He quickly side-stepped Casper, who landed on the floor; then he cuffed the kitten soundly across the ear with one paw, sending him sprawling toward the fireplace.

"John-"

"He's fine. Let them sort it out."

Casper got up dazedly, shaking his head and clearly wondering what on earth had just happened. Evidently, he'd never met with protest when he'd bullied his brothers and sisters. Toby was looking at him calmly- relaxed body language. No hissing.

A brief pause, and then Casper dropped his ears and flopped over onto his back. Toby cast him a look of utter contempt, then turned his back on him and wandered out to the kitchen. Only then did Molly rush over to scoop up the kitten.

"Aww, Casper, Toby was mean to you…"

"He wasn't mean," John protested. "How would you feel if someone wandered into your house and started pushing _you_ about? I think Casper might have learned an important lesson this afternoon about the family pecking order. No harm done, and- don't look at me like that. No, I'm not going to let Toby do that to our _baby."_

Molly seemed about to respond when the doorbell rang. John, coffee in hand, went to answer it; he expected to see Harry and was more than a bit bewildered when he opened the door to a man he'd never seen before.

After a second, though… _had_ he seen him before?

"Hello," he said confusedly, wondering whether to greet him as if he were a friend or a hawker. The man smiled. Fortyish, tall, bearded... he held his arms by his side in a way that John immediately recognised as awkward and unnatural, as if the result of some injury or deformity…

"Dr Watson?"

Of _course_.

"Captain Moran," he responded instantly, relieved that he at least recognised him now. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting to see you, that's all."

"No, well, I- I suppose you didn't. It's been a while." He smiled sheepishly. "I'm in London at the moment, visiting my sister. I thought I'd look you up, seeing as how it's the season for it."

How Moran had "looked him up" was a mystery. John's number and address were both unlisted- he was an extremely private person these days, and given his history of being targeted by guns and bombs and maniacs, he had every reason to keep a low profile. The house number _was_ listed, but under Molly's maiden name, and John was certain he'd never mentioned Molly to Moran before. They'd only had a couple of brief conversations before Moran had left the hospital and wandered out of John's life, and that had been well over a year ago.

"Yes," John responded automatically. "Yes, I suppose it is. Sorry, how did you-"

"I asked around at the hospital." Moran suddenly looked awkward. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude on you. Should I go…?"

John tried to suppress a sigh and put a smile on, and was only half-successful at each. "Not at all. Come in- it's nice to see you looking a lot better than the last time we met. I don't think you've met my wife…"

* * *

"Tell Lestrade that if anything ever comes of this- like Dawson on the warpath, or an investigation into privacy procedures- I'm throwing him under the bus."

"Yes, Sir."

Donovan was more than a little surprised that Gregson had agreed to take her down to the filing room in the basement, where cold case notes were kept as hard copies. But he was in a good mood, for once- he was clipped and gruff, and Donovan had occasionally wondered what would happen to Gregson's face if he smiled. But he was speaking. Therefore: good mood. And whatever favour he owed Lestrade, it was obviously something fairly big.

But then, in the eight years that Donovan had worked with Lestrade, she'd always known him to be masterful at the art of the called-in favour. He spent a considerable amount of time doing favours for other people, from Gregson to the cleaners, so that he could call one in when needed.

Gregson unlocked a filing cabinet, and searched through it briefly before hauling out a manila file. "Right," his tones were businesslike. "Police report into the suicide. And this one…" bringing out a rather larger file… "is a copy of the post-mortem report and the coroner's findings. Classified. They stay in this room. You never saw 'em, and God help you if this goes any further."

Donovan reflected to herself that if Gregson hung Lestrade out to dry over this, Lestrade was going to do the same to her. As they say, shit rolls downhill.

"Yes, Sir," was all she said.

"Half an hour, Donovan. That's it."

Gregson left, with the promise to return and escort her out when her half hour was over; she went through the post-mortem report first.

Page one. Page _one_ made her heart skip a beat.

* * *

_"Come on, constable. I'm asking you a favour. As a… a friend."_

_Sherlock was so near to her in the darkness of the car that she could smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes. On top of the smoke, and the faint scent of his aftershave, there was another smell that she couldn't identify. Neither sweet nor bitter; a smell like sea water on warm skin, like damp earth after a sun shower._

_"You know I can't," she protested. "I'll catch hell if anyone knows we were ever here."_

_'Here' was a country lane in the village of Little Waring, Dorset. Moira Silcock had been beaten to death in her house there four days before, and the Yard were all over the case. So was a young man named Sherlock Holmes, who had contacted the Yard, eager to help, and managed to convince DC Donovan to take him out to the crime scene to take a look about._

_That was all done now, and they were back in the car. Donovan was ready to leave, but Sherlock still had questions for her. Her hand was on the gearstick, even though the car was stationary; she suddenly felt the warm pressure of his hand on hers._

_"Sally," he urged her, in those rich tones that made her slightly weak at the knees. "I'm not asking for very much. All I want to know is if there was a bucket by the back door of the Silcock house on the day you found Moira's body. It's very important. I can solve the crime if you tell me."_

_"And what, exactly, do I get out of this?" she asked him._

_His hand left hers, and brushed her hair from one shoulder. "Well," he murmured, so close that she felt his hot breath on her face, "that would depend on what you want out of it, doesn't it?"_

_Green light. It was a green light…_

_She leaned forward and kissed him hard, feeling the gearstick digging into her side and not much caring. He was a bad kisser- seemed to have absolutely no idea what to do- but was happy for her to guide him along. Didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, either, though Donovan knew what she wanted to do with hers; she was fumbling at his belt._

_A sudden little gasp of protest, one she'd never heard from a man before. She felt him stiffen, but not just the part of him currently in her hand; she looked up at his face, and had never seen him, or anyone else, look so afraid of her._

_"What?" she demanded, withdrawing her hand._

_He lunged for the car door, opened it, and scrambled out of the car like she'd attacked him. Sighing, she got out of her side of the car and slammed the door shut._

_"What the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded, her voice echoing harshly out into the night. "I wasn't doing anything you didn't ask for, so you can stop acting like… that…!"_

_Sherlock hurriedly put his trousers to rights; then he put his hands in his coat pockets and started to walk away. She quickened her step to catch him up, grasping for his sleeve; he flinched and held his hand away from her, whirling around to face her without stopping, or even slowing down. His eyes were still alight with... fear._

_"Are you seriously walking home?" she demanded._

_"I'm seriously walking to the nearest train station, yes."_

_"Sherlock, in case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of nowhere, and it's eleven o'clock at night. The nearest train station is nine miles away, and you won't get a train til morning."_

_"No, I suppose I won't."_

_"Are you stupid or are you crazy? Get in the car."_

_"No."_

_"I'll drive you home-"_

_"I'll walk."_

_"What is_ wrong _with you? Why are you acting like such a… such a freak?"_

_"Leave me alone."_

_"Get in the bloody car!"_

_"I said, leave me alone!"_

* * *

All this, and a lifelong mutual grudge, too, because she'd put her hand down his pants. Hadn't even had a chance to do anything more, really.

But she _had_ had time to notice one thing that night, ten years ago. The facts-and-figures page of the post-mortem report claimed that the man on the slab that afternoon, the man identified and named and buried as Sherlock Holmes, was uncircumcised.

And that was absolutely, completely and unequivocably wrong.


	6. Behind and Before

_Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me._

\- **Psalm 139:5**

* * *

Changi Airport was an interesting place in broad daylight, but at four in the morning it was spectacular.

Sherlock hadn't been able to sleep on the flight from Sydney- too watchful- and he wasn't able to sleep now. But there were other travellers around him who weren't in his situation; mostly Australians en route to London. Some Brits going home, or visiting family for the holidays.

From his earliest days, Sherlock had felt that the problem wasn't that he saw too much of the world, it was that he couldn't turn it off when he wanted to. He was a child of the city, at heart; but crowds often overwhelmed him with the sheer amount of information coming off them.

The stopover in Singapore was only eight hours. Many of those from the Sydney leg of the flight were still milling around in the airport lounge. They huddled in the uncomfortable plastic chairs, or on the carpet- some trying desperately to sleep, some trying desperately to stay awake. Sherlock, draped in his tweed coat and with his knees drawn up onto his chair, glanced them over.

A bunch of rather ordinary people, so far as it all went. A middle-aged British couple who were flying home, not for Christmas, but because their adult daughter was dying of some lingering disease- probably cancer. A younger couple, Australian; the woman had a sleeping toddler in her arms and a black eye. The husband was beside her, knowing that all eyes were on him as the author of the black eye. Only Sherlock could see that she'd actually been hit by a male blood-relative- possibly a brother, more likely her father.

And then, he thought, scanning the crowd, beyond domestic abuse and dying people, there were the hundreds of other little things to notice about those who were crowded into the lounge. The elderly lady across from him was wearing a silk scarf that had been hand-made in India. Her husband, a musician of some kind, had bought her something very expensive for Christmas, and was worried about how she'd react to it. The young woman sitting at the end of the row was a francophone who had a heavy interest in musical theatre. There was a shabbily-dressed young man wandering restlessly around; he was travelling alone, and wondering what was going to happen if border security found the baggie in his carry-on luggage. Troubled youth, that one- religious fundamentalism in his past somewhere, probably the mother. The older woman in the silk scarf went to the vending machine and bought a Coke, despite the fact that she was a Type-2 Diabetic…

"Mister Holmes?"

Sherlock turned abruptly. The boy who had spoken was young- eleven, maybe twelve, and small for his age- and didn't seem much like a threat. Malay-speaking. Poor, but not destitute- poor enough to be running errands at Changi at four in the morning, but he was clean, and wearing shoes. He was polite, almost timid, hiding behind bangs of thick, sleek dark hair. He held in his hands what seemed to be a cream-coloured envelope. Sherlock frowned at him.

"Mister... Sherlock... Holmes?" he tried again, deeply embarrassed, as if aware that his English may well sound dreadful to a native speaker.

"Apa yang anda mahu?" Sherlock asked him warily.

"Ini adalah untuk anda." The boy gave Sherlock an envelope with his name neatly printed on the front.

"Terima kasih."* _Chinese-made envelope. Purchased here in Singapore. Not booby-trapped or poisoned. Male handwriting…_

The boy was still hovering. He looked longingly at Sherlock, and at the pocket he clearly hoped contained the posh Englishman's wallet.

"Tiada wang Singapura," Sherlock explained coldly, and the boy went away, without a tip and disappointed.

Sherlock stared at the envelope for a few minutes in silence. When he was finally assured that the note within could not, in itself, cause him harm, he carefully opened it. Inside was a twice-folded, Chinese-made paper.

_Psalm 139:7-8._

Jet-coloured, Staeffler ink. Definitely male handwriting. Sherlock retrieved his phone and keyed in the reference.

_Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there._

* * *

"I'm just saying, if you don't want to go, we can make our excuses, Molly. I'm not entirely sold on the idea, anyhow. We don't even really know him."

It was three in the afternoon, and the Watsons were at rest in their kitchen- or as at-rest as two people who were on constant guard against the depredations of two kittens could possibly be. Sebastian Moran had just called and suggested the Watsons go out to dinner with him the following evening, and Molly was having reservations that her husband didn't entirely understand.

"I don't want you to think I don't like him," she hesitated. To her way of thinking, it wasn't her place to criticise John's friends in any way, shape or form.

"He's hardly my best friend, feel free to not like him," John responded. "To be honest, I think it was weird and a bit rude of him to show up like that. Is that the done thing, these days? I think I must be the only man in the country who was brought up to not just drop in on strangers like that. And I'd like to find out where exactly he got our number from." He paused. "Does he… worry you?"

John knew that he had "trust issues"- he'd been told a million times, and not just in therapy. The fact that he didn't trust Sebastian Moran didn't mean all that much, really. But Molly was different. She trusted people. She had trusted Jim Moriarty. If she was having misgivings, there must be a good reason for it.

"I don't know. You know I don't have a good track record at being able to pick… that sort of thing," she blushed, and hid her face in Smudge's grey fur.

"Oh, thanks very much," John smiled, and leaned over to kiss her forehead. "I happen to think you had _impeccable_ taste when you chose a husband. Well, It's up to you. Really. I don't care much either way... and by the way, you look exhausted. Why don't you go to bed?"

"I'm not tired," she protested.

"Fine. Go to bed and I'll _join you,_ then."

Molly smiled- very tiredly- and gave in, taking Casper and Smudge with her and leaving John in the kitchen with Toby. John had been reading a medical periodical; almost as soon as Molly had taken the kittens, Toby decided that it was high time his favourite person paid him some attention. He jumped up on the table, sat on the journal, and headbutted John's face.

"Toby," John scolded mildly, stroking him. "You're only getting away with this because you're in a state of kitten-induced trauma, you know."

Toby purred.

"Yeah, I'm not entirely used to it either," John told him. "But I'm afraid if we're going to sit and compare Abrupt Major Life Changes, I win."

In the last few days, it had really sunk in for John that he was going to have to get his act together on this "fatherhood thing." Quite aside from the fact that he had no idea what the "fatherhood thing" even was, he hadn't yet figured out what the "husband thing" was either. He was really making things up as he went along; Molly didn't seem to have any real complaints, so far, but John thought that a man was supposed to have a better idea of where he was in the world than he currently had.

Before John could continue this line of cat-therapy, the doorbell rang- a startling sound in the quiet house. He got up to answer it, muttering a mild and implausible threat against whoever it was disturbing Molly at a time like this.

This time, he wasn't particularly expecting to see Harry. But neither was he expecting to see Sergeant Sally Donovan on his doorstep.

He hadn't seen her in the flesh since the inquest into Sherlock's death. She'd changed very little in two years, he thought; dressed the same, didn't look any older, though she seemed a little less arrogant than he remembered. She looked well-dressed but slightly dishevelled; tired. Probably just got off work. She had a manila envelope under one arm.

"What do you want?" he asked in the most emotionless, matter-of-fact way he could muster.

She looked down for a second. "I came over to apologise," she muttered. "You know why. About Sherlock."

John crossed his arms. "Oh, really? Well, that's very decent of you to go into damage control after all this time. Go on, apologise if it makes you sleep better at night. And then you can leave, and God help you if I ever have to see you again."

"How was I to know?"

"You _weren't_ , Donovan." They weren't friends, so he wasn't about to address her as "Sally", and he had little to no respect for her police work, so he wasn't going to address her as "Sergeant", either. She didn't know it, but he'd adopted the same tone he'd used in the isolated four or five occasions where he'd been called upon to tear strips off a lower ranking soldier. Calm. Polite. But don't push it. _Really_ don't push it. "You weren't. That's the point. You weren't to know and you _didn't_ know."

"Based on the information that I had-"

"The information you had was faulty. You can't just…" he trailed off.

_You can't just accuse someone of a serious crime because he annoys you._

"Look, if there's anyone who knows how annoying Sherlock could be, it's me," he told her. "But there's a huge difference between finding him annoying and _having him arrested for kidnapping_ based on nothing more substantial than the screaming of a frightened, traumatised kid."

"It wasn't just that. He knew things… about the kidnapping…"

"He also knew you were giving it to Anderson just by your deodorant," John reminded her. "Did you ever bother to _ask_ how he knew things about the kidnapping that were a bit brilliant, even for him? Or did you just immediately conclude that that made him the kidnapper?"

"Look, I'm trying to apologise-"

"Donovan, Sherlock's dead. He's _dead._ Do you even-" John shook his head. His throat had just closed up and he was suddenly terrified that he was going to cry, and in front of _Donovan_. "Go, okay. Just go." He started to close the door, but she threw her hand out to stop him.

"No, wait a second. John, I need to show you something..."

John couldn't remember the last time she'd directly addressed him by his first name. That, and her tone, was enough to give him pause. "What?"

She took the envelope from where it was tucked under her arm, and put it in his hands. He looked at her blankly. "What's this?"

"It's as much from Sherlock's post-mortem report that I could write on my arm before Gregson walked in and caught me doing it," she responded.

Hand-written notes on cheap paper, but at a glance, they were at least worded like the preliminaries of every post-mortem report John had ever seen. "Okay. Why are you giving this to me?"

"Look at it."

John sighed, and started to read, muttering the words to himself as he did so. All in order: full name, date of birth, height, approximate weight, race, physical description, distinguishing features…

He looked up at her.

"That's wrong," she told him flatly. "And you know it's wrong."

"Oh for God's _sake_. He's been dead for nearly three years, and I'm _married_ -"

"I don't bloody care if you're gay or not," she responded crossly. "Just tell me I'm not going insane, and that it's wrong."

John looked across the notes again, and cleared his throat. "Well, I can't vouch for it as _personally_ as I'm sure you'd like to believe, but he once told me the other boys at school would call him… some interesting things because of it," he finally admitted. "Why, how do _you_ know-?"

"Never mind how I know," she responded. "What are we going to do about this?"

John's face twitched; he swallowed hard and was silent for a few seconds. Finally, he shook his head. "We're not going to do anything about this, Donovan. Because it doesn't matter anymore."

"How could it not matter? He was your best _friend_ -"

"Yes. And now he's dead, and that can't be changed. Just leave us alone."

This time, she let him shut the door on her.

* * *

John looked in on Molly; despite her protests that she wasn't tired, she'd fallen asleep on the coverlet, with Smudge and Casper nestled around her neck. He left her to it. It was an hour later when she woke up and found John back in the kitchen; he was still mulling over Sally's notes.

"What's that?" she asked him. He looked up, a little startled.

"Nothing of great consequence," he reassured her, getting up and kissing her sleep-flushed cheek. "Sally Donovan came around. She's got herself a guilt trip because, after all this time, it's finally occurred to her that Sherlock didn't kidnap the Bruhl kids."

"And she brought that around?"

John didn't notice the tension in his wife's voice.

"Yes," he responded. "She says it's some notes she copied of the… case. The autopsy report, mostly." He paused. "Molly, um. I don't think I've ever asked... were you... were you at the hospital... the day Sherlock died?"

This time he did note the look on Molly's face, and how long she paused before she could respond.

"Yes," she finally said, so softly that he could barely hear her. "Yes, for a little while that morning. But I'd gone home by the time it… happened."

"So you never… had anything to do with him… after it happened…?"

She shook her head. "No. They wouldn't have let me, even if I'd asked. They've got policies on what happens when… there are circumstances why staff might not always be able to stay professional."

"Okay." John nodded his head thoughtfully. "Sorry. I know it's not a happy topic of conversation. But it's just, based on what Donovan brought round, it doesn't seem like…" he trailed off.

"John?"

There was a long pause. This time, he shook his head. "Nothing. It's okay."

_If Sherlock hadn't died… would you still love him?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * A/N: Very rough translation: "What do you want?" "I was told to give this to you." "Thank you." - My Malay is probably extremely bad, and since I know I have readers in Malaysia and Singapore, feel free to chime in and correct it :)


	7. Ask, Seek, Knock

 

_Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you._

**-Matthew 7:7**

* * *

"Is it just my imagination, or is this The Shift That Will Not End?"

John spoke lightly, but there was real strain in his voice. Dr. Dhaval Verma smiled tiredly at his colleague across the counter of the nurses station. "Only four hours to go," he reminded John, trying to be cheerful about it.

"Oh, fantastic. Not long at all."

John was sometimes so dryly sarcastic that Dhaval, whose first language was Hindi, had trouble working out if he was being sarcastic or serious. "You'll get used to it again- and quicker than you think, maybe," he comforted him. "You've been on holidays for too long."

"Not long enough," John grouched.

"Or that. Still, we're travelling nicely tonight- turnaround times quite quick. And no gory disasters."

"Don't say that, you'll bring a deluge of Christmas-party disasters on all our heads," John responded- and he was not entirely successful at hiding a certain amount of excitement at the prospect of a whole Accident and Emergency department full of Christmas-party disasters. That was both the interesting and difficult part of Urgent Care work. You felt worse when people died, and better when they made it. There was rarely any lack of entertaining cases at this time of year, and it certainly made the shift go faster- or seem to.

"Lots of gory disasters we're having," Dhaval said loudly, trying to confuse Fate. "Wouldn't it be awful if it was really quiet tonight, and we got to go to the break room and play table-tennis?" He smiled and looked over his notes. "Anyway, John, four hours is four hours, two hundred and forty minutes, no matter which way you splice it. And your brain doesn't seem to be on holidays, you're working like a fiend tonight," he commented. "You discharged Karyn Martindale?"

"Uh, yes. Grand mal epileptic- she pulled an all-nighter and had a fairly minor seizure. By the time I came along she was recovering well- tired and a bit hazy, but that's normal. I referred her to have her medication looked at and gave her a certificate for three days off work. I think she'll be fine."

"Neil Laursen?"

"The one who fell down the stairs? Sent him upstairs for x-rays. Fractured ribs, pretty sure. Facial contusions. I'm tempted to sign him in because of his age, but I don't think he's in any real danger. Wanted to strangle his daughter, though."

Every now and again, John was called upon by his colleagues to take on a patient who demanded an "English doctor." Dhaval had studied in Great Britain, and was actually John's professional superior. John couldn't understand why he took things so philosophically when required to hand things over to the "English doctor."

Dhaval seemed about to respond to this when, abruptly, both his own pager and John's went off. They both gave their attention to the information on their incoming case.

"John," Dhaval said distractedly, "could you please go through the triage list while I attend to this?"

There was a second or two before John registered what Dhaval had asked him to do; he did a double take. "What? Why?" he demanded. "I was paged as well-"

"You read the pager. You know why."

John rolled his eyes and sighed. "Oh for God's _sake_ -"

"I said, _take the triage list,"_ Dhaval picked up the clipboard and shoved it into John's reluctant hands. "Begin with Stephen Ilmer. Bed seven. Possible minor stroke. It looks like most of us are going to be busy with this new case, but I'm confident you can hold down the fort for us-"

"But-"

"Dr Watson, I'm not going to ask you again."

John knew better than to argue with a work colleague who was addressing him as _Dr Watson_ when there were no patients within earshot. Face scalded with shame, he turned and made his way up the ward toward Stephen Ilmer in bed seven.

The display on both pagers proclaimed Dhaval's reasoning. A young man was being rushed in by ambulance, after falling off a second-storey balcony in Brent Park.

* * *

Not for the last time, Sherlock was grateful for a good coat and scarf.

Singapore had been hot and muggy; London was the colour of cold. It was ten o'clock by the time the flight landed, and shortly before midnight before Sherlock had cleared customs, retrieved the small overnight bag he'd brought with him, and exited the airport.

A cab was out of the question. Anyone would remember a man with such a small bag, but with enough cash on him to fund half an hour in a taxi. So it was a bus, a train, another bus. And then Sherlock, his overnight bag hauled over his shoulder, walked the last kilometre or so to the far end of Station Approach Road.

There was a roof over his head here; but by now it had started to rain, and the rain was coming in at an angle. He looked around in the dull glow of the lights across the street. This place was desolate. Cold, pitiless bricks for walls, and a concrete floor, wet with rain and urine; cracked and worn down with time and care. Every sound echoed here; every drip, every breath.

There were no others here. But there had been, not long before- the smell was quite distinctive, the sour stench of unwashed bodies and intractable human suffering.

Raucous laughter echoed down toward the darker end of the street; two men were staggering up the footpath toward him. Sherlock knew- or thought he knew- most of the homeless people in London, but these two were new to him. Both about his own age, though both looked older on first glance; Sherlock knew how to tell a man's real age by his nasolabial fold. The taller and broader of the two was half-Scottish and came from a broken home with a history of alcohol abuse; he was new in town, but not new to roughing it. The other was a schizophrenic, who was on the streets because a female relative- possibly his mother, but more likely his older sister- had just died suddenly, and he'd been set adrift by circumstances.

"Who're you?" he-who-was-adrift asked Sherlock.

"Nobody important," was Sherlock's automatic response. He had been too dazed, on touchdown at Heathrow, to really think out what he was going to do about his voice; anyone would remember a homeless man with an accent like that. Instinctively, he adopted a more realistic accent for his circumstances, and one that he could imitate well- Lestrade's Londonised West Country burr. He lifted his voice up a touch- the baritone tended to come across as a growl, a threat. "I don't want any trouble," he said mildly. "I'm tired, and just need to crash for a bit."

"Got a smoke?" the half-Scot wanted to know. It was a test, and one Sherlock recognised instantly. Who was he, what sort of a man? A bully? A pushover? A junkie? Did he have anything on him worth stealing?

"Got a match?" he responded. It was the correct answer. Tobacco met fire; the three men smoked in silence for a minute or two. None of them spoke. A grubby, freezing alley was not the place to make friends- it was enough if you didn't make enemies. To this end, Sherlock finally spoke.

"Where?" he asked.

The schizophrenic one pointed. "Down there's where it's warmer," he commented. "We were going to start up a fire, but I reckon it's going to be too wet for it. Call you up if there is one, if you want?"

"Thank you."

Stubbing out his cigarette, Sherlock made off in that direction, underneath the arches and amid the skip bins from a nearby restaurant. The passage narrowed and gradually dropped below street level; this was a relic from before the trains had come to London. Children had been born and raised in this tunnel. But that had been centuries ago, before the graffiti and the electric lights. It was never made for modern man.

And then, up ahead, something caught Sherlock's eye. He wandered along the dark passageway under the overhead bridge, fumbling with his hands at times, until he reached the spray-painted message on the wall at the far end. Bright pink. Canned spray paint. It shone faintly luminous in the darkness, and proclaimed:

_Psalms 142:4._

Sherlock's phone was down to 24% battery capacity, and he didn't know if or when he'd have a chance to recharge it. All the same, this was important. He fumbled to key the reference in.

_I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul._

Sherlock was exhausted. He had not slept in three days, and was under the full weight of fear and jetlag. He threw his overnight bag beside the pink writing and dropped down onto the cold concrete. His bag would have to do for a pillow; his coat for a blanket.

Sleep flooded over him like an icy wave.

* * *

"John, you should have woken me."

Ordinarily, John would have. It was the usual routine in the Watson household, even before their marriage, that John would wake Molly on his return from the hospital. He would sort out breakfast while she had a shower; they had time to sit leisurely over tea and toast and talk.

John hadn't woken her this morning. He was hoping she'd take the hint and call in; instead, she'd gotten up twenty minutes later than normal, and was now wandering around with wet hair, trying to find her shoes. John, as keyed up as he was this particular morning, couldn't help smiling to himself. Molly had a lifelong inability to keep her shoes in order, and was forever hunting them down when she needed them.

"You needn't go in if you're not up to it," he told her mildly, pretending to read the morning paper.

"I have to," she insisted regretfully. "Those cultures will die if I don't look after them."

"Can't Mike do that?"

She gave him a withering look, and John silently conceded the point. Mike was a good doctor and an even better teacher, but even in his student days he'd had spectacularly bad luck keeping the "live" in "live cultures." Black thumbs, too, if you believed his wife. The fact that Mike had _children_ was sort of terrifying.

But Molly was no longer thinking about her delicate slide cultures in the pathology lab at Barts. She was still half asleep, but could not fail to notice how pale and uneasy John was looking. She sat down at the table opposite him and leaned across to give his hand a brief squeeze. "What's wrong?" she asked with artless grace.

John paused for a few seconds before clearing his throat. "Had a patient brought in last night," he said, slightly faintly. "He fell off a balcony at a party in Brent Park. I'm afraid he died."

For a second, Molly looked angry. John had no idea that she'd made Dhaval, and all of his other regular colleagues, promise to make sure he _never had to treat trauma caused by a fall…_ "Oh, John," she murmured gently. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm- I'm okay," he insisted brittly. "Died in the ambulance, and I never directly…" he cleared his throat. It was not what he had _done_ , but what he had _seen_. He wondered how he could proceed with his explanation without distressing Molly, or having her rush to the bathroom to vomit again.

"This guy who died," he continued carefully, "there were some… things I noted about his injuries that seemed a bit… inconsistent, to me."

"Inconsistent to what?"

He looked at her. "You _know_ what."

Silence. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "John, please," she murmured. "It's over. Don't torture yourself."

"I'm not torturing myself," he protested. "But… those inconsistencies aren't going to go away if I ignore them. I don't believe... I mean, I've seen enough cases by now to notice... I..." he trailed off, unable to explain that he didn't seem to remember Sherlock's head crushed in, the way the poor kid from Brent Park's head had been. "Molly, if I asked you to help me with something… something that might be difficult for you… would you do it?"

She looked across the table at the man she'd married. There was nothing he wouldn't give her, and give her freely. Nothing, she felt, that he would ever keep from her. Nothing he'd grudge her.

He trusted her. Had no idea how many lies she'd told him…

"I would always try," she responded warmly. It was the only thing she could say that would please him, and still not be a lie. "What do you need?"

"I need to see a copy of Sherlock's autopsy report," he said promptly. "Along with any recordings, photographs, findings. I suppose there's one at the hospital?"

"We keep hard copies of all post-mortems done at the hospital," she responded.

"Do you have access to those records?"

"Yes. John, I…" she stopped herself from saying _I can't._ "I could get fired for giving out information like that," she said instead.

"I know." There was no hint of mischief in his gaze- no element of daring or adventure, or even of sarcasm. "And I would never, _ever_ ask you to do something that could put you at risk like that unless it was so important…"

"John, I don't understand. It- it can't change anything…"

He shook his head. "If you mean 'it can't bring Sherlock back to life', no. No, it can't. But the truth is always important." He exhaled and squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry that this is something I have to ask you to do. But I don't trust anyone else to help me, Molly. Will you do this for me, please?"

Her voice was soft, but never wavered. "Yes..."


	8. Drawn Swords

_The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords._

**Psalms 55:21**

* * *

"Okey-dokes, mate, wake up…"

Sherlock surfaced slowly out of sleep. It was bitterly cold; an overwhelming, pitiless chill that was not one bit abated by gloves or boots. There was a light shining in his eyes; he sprang up in alarm to find three well-dressed young men had come into the tunnel and were standing before him. Each held a torch; the one who had his torch trained on him dropped the beam to the floor, leaving his outline only to Sherlock's gaze.

_Working professionals-not blood relations-that one's got four sisters-that one speaks Portuguese-that one's ridden a horse in the last three days…_

"What do you want?" Sherlock demanded.

"It's okay," the nearest one said calmly, holding his hands up, palms-outward. "Someone gave us a call, let us know you were down here. We just came to see if you were all right. Bloody cold night for you to be sleeping rough. What's your name?"

"Christian," Sherlock muttered, reaching for the name instinctively. "Christian Yearsley."

"'You got anywhere warmer where you can sleep tonight, Christian? Any money for a motel, or maybe a backpackers…?"

Sherlock was still scanning the three intruders. Clean-cut. Caucasian. The youngest was married, though he couldn't have been older than twenty-one. All of them were teetotallers, and-

_Oh, dear Lord. I've been waylaid by God-botherers._

"I, um, not really," he blurted out, trying to control the chattering of his teeth. "I'm not… really homeless…" He managed to stop himself before using the word _indigent._ That would have drawn attention to himself. "I'm travelling…"

"Have you eaten today, mate?"

Sherlock hadn't eaten since leaving Sydney, but that had completely slipped his mind until now- he'd never even considered the connection between four days without food and the thumping headache he now had. Sleep deprivation... extreme cold... of _course_ , he reasoned. _Of course I'm off my game._

He shook his head.

"Would you like to come with us? We can give you a meal and a bed."

Sherlock hesitated. He hadn't expected to be "rescued" in this way in the least, and now his dilemma stood on whether it would be more conspicuous for him to refuse help or take it- and how much longer he could survive mentally without shelter or food. At the last second, he decided. "Where?" he asked.

"We'll have to ring around, see where we can put you up for tonight. Come on, now. Up you get."

* * *

It was ten past three when Sherlock arrived at Southwark Cathedral.

The communal dinner was long over; he was given a sandwich and a cup of tea instead, and wolfed them down gratefully, in between rationalising to those there to help that he wasn't mentally ill, he wasn't a drinker, he wasn't an addict. He didn't need counselling. He didn't need long-term help. He didn't need medical care. He was, he explained, en route to his brother in Bristol and was simply waiting for said brother to send money across so he could complete his journey.

And no, he absolutely did not want to be prayed with. He didn't want to be prayed _for,_ either, but he knew that he couldn't avoid that one. They left him alone after that, and he slept uneasily on a camp bed, alongside seven others until woken up at nine.

No breakfast; Sherlock wasn't used to eating two meals in such quick succession, and taxing his digestive system like that was definitely going to slow him down, just when he needed to speed things up.

He had some enquiries to make among some very old friends.

* * *

John woke at sunset in the familiar way. Soft feminine lips- that he had never in his life regarded as "too small"- brushing against his forehead. He stirred and took his first deep breath for the day, then opened his eyes groggily. Molly was sitting beside him on the bed. "Six-thirty," she told him gently, as he reluctantly pulled himself upright and Toby jumped up on the bed to greet him. "I've got dinner on."

"Okay. Thanks." His gaze fell on the thick manila file she had resting on her lap.

"So I got this for you," she said, a little faintly. "There… weren't as many photographs as I would have expected, and no tape recording."

"But everything you've found is there?"

She looked at him for a few seconds. "Yes."

Sleepy as he was, he registered her hurt. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to doubt you." He ran his hand thoughtfully over the yellowed cardboard cover of the folder, then leaned over and kissed her. "I've got to admit, my fingers are itching."

Itching fingers or not, John managed to leave the manila folder alone while he showered and dressed and ate dinner with his wife. Molly went through the motions, but she clearly had no great appetite, and was pushing her food around her plate rather than actually eating it.

"Not feeling well, again?" John enquired gently.

"I'm okay." She obligingly worried down some rice. "I'm just tired, that's all. Um. Long day."

"I wish I could stay home with you. But I really can't call in- not this close to having so much time off." He got up, gently took Molly's pulse, then lifted her hand to kiss it. "Bath, bed and at least three Glee reruns. Doctor's orders."

She smiled tiredly. "You're only saying that because you won't be _home_ for the Glee reruns," she responded. John only ever shared the television grudgingly when it came to Molly's taste in happy, good-time programs.

"That's _exactly_ right, and doesn't change my prescription in the least, Lolly."

* * *

John worked steadily throughout the night- a busy one, but not crazily so- trying to placate his itching fingers by reading in dribs and drabs where he could. By six, he had a general idea of the contents of Sherlock's post-mortem. As he and Dhaval Verma clocked off for the morning, he drew the older doctor aside.

"I'm sorry to do this to you after the shift we just had," he muttered apologetically. "But I was wondering if you could take a quick look at some autopsy notes for me, let me know what you think?"

Dhaval raised one eyebrow. "Autopsy notes?"

"It's a long story," John fumbled, handing over the manila folder. "You don't need to read the whole thing, just the fourth and fifth pages. I… I just need you to tell me what you think the likely cause of these injuries would be."

Dhaval looked tired, but he took the folder obligingly, and looked over the notes for a few minutes in silence. John waited, instinctively curling his left hand nervously.

"This is a transcript?" Dhaval finally clarified. "Word-for-word?"

"Yes."

"In that case, I'd say almost definitely a car accident." He looked over the few photographs available to him. "Perhaps something a little more obscure- amusement park ride accident? But yes. Car accident."

"What would you say if I told you 'trauma from a four-storey fall'?"

Dhaval looked puzzled. "I'd say 'rubbish'," he responded, without much hesitation. "I'd also ask you how a body can sustain whiplash like that from a fall of that type. And these contusions described here, as well as the fractures to the sternum and ribcage, they would definitely be from a seat belt…"

John nodded. "Yes. Exactly what I thought." Both doctors had seen their fair share of car accident injuries over the past six months of working shifts together.

"And here..." Dhaval pointed. "It also mentions significant grazing and contusions to the lower left quadrant. But the photograph-" he flipped to it- "shows no grazing there at all."

"I noticed that, too."

"And then, it mentions some skull and vertebrae trauma, yes, but in all, I'd expect much greater damage to someone who- fell four storeys, you said?"

"Yes."

"And hit a hard surface?"

"Very hard, I'm afraid."

John's words were as pragmatic as any doctor's on the subject. Emotional doctors quickly either learned to block it out, or dropped out of practice, and John generally managed the former. But now he _was c_ racking, despite the casual wording of his comment; Dhaval could hear it in every word. And he suddenly realised that he had heard this story before- more than once. It was well known among the staff at Hammersmith that John was a talented and likeable doctor who could, for all anyone knew, suddenly go to pieces at the drop of a hat. Past war trauma, and a friend who had committed suicide.

"Who does this report belong to, John?" he asked him, quietly and calmly.

John took a deep breath and took the folder back in his shaking hands. "I thought it belonged to Sherlock Holmes," he said finally. "But now, I have absolutely no idea."

* * *

The Homeless Network had disintegrated after Sherlock Holmes had disappeared from London. Sherlock had made some discreet enquiries that day, particularly north of the river; nobody could tell him anything. Or rather, he suspected, nobody _would_ tell him anything. Fourteen months on, they could not quickly forget Liam Newell, who had done Sherlock Holmes a favour and ended up severing an artery in the lockup.

Not even cash was going to persuade some of them. And for every person he asked, he knew he was coming one step closer to being discovered. London's homeless now knew that Sherlock Holmes was back in town and in full pursuit of his enemy.

The question was, did that enemy know it, too?

Sherlock spent a second night sleeping at the Cathedral; this was going to require every bit of strength and energy that he could muster, and he had always been deeply pragmatic- mechanical, even- about his physical needs, though often understimating how much fuel and sleep the average human body required. He slept for a full eight hours this time, regardless of how many unwashed snorers he was surrounded with. On waking, he was almost angry at himself for giving in to that kind of weakness.

A quick shower and a scanty breakfast; while he was in a church, he may as well do some church-based investigating.

* * *

Molly's evening of rest and Glee reruns had done her well, John decided, when he finally woke her up at half past eight in the morning. It was a Saturday; lazy day and no reason to rush anywhere, at least for Mrs Watson. Her husband, on the other hand, seemed pale and agitated, and she knew it from the second she woke. For one thing, he was still clutching his precious file on Sherlock in both hands.

"Is something wrong?" she asked him, trying to swallow the sinking feeling in her heart.

"Yes, um…" John hesitated. "I… I'm so sorry that I have to ask you this..."

"You know you can ask me anything, John."

"Are you absolutely sure that, to the best of your knowledge, this file belongs to Sherlock's case?"

She looked at him for a few seconds, anxiety twitching in her chest. She hadn't had a chance to really look through the case itself, but it was certainly… yes. She could tell him _this_ much in perfect honesty. "It was filed in our morgue records under his name," she told him. "There wasn't anything else. It has all the inquest notes. And all the right information…"

John shook his head. "No."

"No?"

"No. Wrong physical description, wrong injuries. Right photographs... I think. But they don't match the written notes... and there should be a tape recording, as well, that seems to either have gone missing or never have been made at all."

By this time, Molly's heart was beating so hard against her ribcage that it hurt her. Warm nausea was rising, and she suspected that this was not in the least pregnancy-related, for once. She looked into John's eyes, searching; but she saw nothing there but trust. "So… what are you saying?" she murmured.

John took a deep breath, and seemed to hold it while he thought. "I don't know," he finally said. "I don't know… except… that this autopsy wasn't done on the man I saw… lying there…"

"Oh, John-"

"I have to talk to Greg this morning." He kissed her cheek, a little absently. "I'm sorry. I hope I won't be too long about it."

* * *

"You seem deep in thought over there."

A clergyman, clearly, even without the dog collar. Obvious from his shoes. Sherlock had been tucked up in a corner of the vestry, reading the Good Book; he put it down, almost embarrassed, though why a clergyman should object to his reading a Bible was beyond him.

The elderly, bespectacled, kindly man put his hand out for a quick shake. "Phillip Avery. I'm the head of the God Squad in these parts."

Sherlock grudgingly thought that he might like Phillip Avery. Clever, and placid, and accepting. He reminded him of Mike Stamford, plus twenty years, minus twenty pounds.

"I was just reading," Sherlock muttered. "About Lazarus."

"Ah, yes. Book of John?" At hearing the name _John,_ Sherlock flinched. "What did you think?" Avery asked him.

Sherlock was silent for a few seconds. "I was wondering... how Lazarus felt about the whole thing," he said, picking his words carefully to match his feigned accent. "I reckon it must have been quite a shock for him to discover he wasn't dead after all. Hard to readjust."

Avery sat down and thought about this for a few seconds. "Yes, I believe you're right," he said at last. "Never thought of it that way before."

"I wonder if he ever really recovered, you know- got back to things the way they were."

The elderly clergyman smiled. "Well, we can only speculate. But I'd say- yes, and no. We humans like being alive, Mr. Yearsley. We're remarkably resilient in that respect. The will to live overpowers all others, and sometimes I wonder if that's right." He paused thoughtfully again. "But having something like _that_ happen to you… no, I expect you'd never really be the same man again. And I don't think Lazarus's friends and sisters would have remained the same either. Not after the things they'd heard and seen- and felt. Resurrection is a game-changer, all right."

Sherlock seemed about to speak again when the verger, a man named Tait, suddenly popped his head through the vestry door. Sherlock liked him less than he liked Avery. Twitchy and nervous. "Sorry to interrupt," he cringed, in a way that reminded Sherlock unmistakably of Mrs Hudson. "But there's a call for you come through to the office, Mr Yearsley. Your brother, I expect."

If Mycroft was on that line… Mycroft would _never_ be on that line. Sherlock had no idea where his brother was, but he knew that he would never do something that stupid. He rose and followed Tait into the little church office on the other side of the main hall; he picked up the phone, but let his withering gaze fall on Tait until he got the hint and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

"Yes," Sherlock growled into the phone.

"Oh, hello there, Sherlock," said a cheery, enthusiastic voice. "Just thought I'd drop you a line welcoming you back to London. How was the flight?"

"Long and arduous. Congratulations, you've found me," Sherlock responded. "Though you could have simply called my mobile phone instead of using the landline. Where do I meet you?"

"Meet me?"

"You heard me perfectly. You've summoned me from halfway across the world with your quaint little letters, very clever. And you know exactly where I am. Where do we meet?"

"I haven't decided that yet." A pause. "But when we do meet, do remind me that I've got something of yours you'll probably want back. Can you guess what it is?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm not an idiot."

"Sharp, very sharp. Oh, and while you're there in Southwark taking refuge with the Holy Rollers, you may want to ask them about the Wedding in Cana. Just to help you get up to speed on what's been happening since you've been dead, Lazarus."

"Why would I want to ask them about the Wedding in Cana?"

"Exile's turned you into a bit of an idiot, hasn't it?"

Sherlock refused to bite the bait, so there was a very long pause. The two men listened to each other's breathing; one calm and measured, the other hitched and anxious.

"Went for a long, romantic walk with your friend Mrs Hudson, last night." Again, those cheerful, conversational tones. "Of course, I was the only one between us who knew it…"

Sherlock lowered his voice to a vicious hiss. "Now you listen to me you _miserable f-"_

There was a low chuckling down the line.

"Mrs Hudson has _nothing to do with this._ Haven't you heard that I tend to get a little put out when people threaten her?"

"Oh yes, I did hear about that." He was still chuckling. "And that was only when they _hurt_ her..."

Sherlock drew a sharp breath. "I'm going to find you, Moran. And when I do, the state of Mrs Hudson- and the others- will determine whether I hand you over to the authorities, or whether I _kill you._ And if you give me reason to kill you, I can promise you now that I will do so _slowly and painfully,_ and with more satisfaction than you can ever imagine."

And then he slammed the phone down onto its cradle.

Stalking out, he found Avery sitting in the front pew, head bowed in prayer. He stopped short in confusion, and something approaching embarrassment, as if the idea that a clergyman might pray in a cathedral had never before entered his head. Finally, Avery lifted his head serenely. "Mr Yearsley. I was just praying for you." Sherlock suppressed the urge to protest. "Is everything all right?"

Sherlock exhaled. Avery would probably be a better source than his phone for this one. "I need to ask you," he said slowly, "what you can tell me about the Wedding in Cana. What is it, a Bible story, I suppose?"

"Yes. A wedding that Jesus and his mother went to, early in his ministry. They ran out of wine, so Jesus's mother asked him for help, and he turned water into wine."

Sherlock had a feeling this was not what Moran had meant when he'd referred to the story. "Is there anything else... important about it...? Can you tell me anything about it, beyond what the Bible says?"

Avery looked puzzled. "Beyond? Well, we don't really know anything about it _beyond_ what the Bible says, Mr Yearsley." He thought for a few moments in silence. "Ah, yes."

"Ah, yes, what?"

"One thing that might help you, perhaps. According to legend, that wedding was between John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene."


	9. Lost and Found

_This thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found._

**Luke 15:32**

* * *

 

"What happened to his phone, Greg?"

"Good morning to you, too," Lestrade greeted John tolerantly, gesturing him inside the flat. "Mel and Hayley aren't here. Swear as much as you like. What happened to whose phone?"

"Whose phone do you think?" John demanded impatiently.

Lestrade sighed. He'd been looking forward to a day to himself- his first day off in a fortnight- while Melissa and Hayley went shopping together; clearly that wasn't going to happen now. "John," he tried reasonably. "Now, come on. I don't think-"

"It isn't mentioned in the autopsy report," John railroaded him determinedly, holding aloft the manila folder. He put it down on the kitchen table and opened it in a businesslike way. Lestrade looked at it over his shoulder, frowning.

"Where'd you get that?"

"Molly," John responded distractedly, not noticing Lestrade's visible relief. Well, at least it wasn't Donovan, anyway. Molly might be looking down the business end of a firing at Barts, and she might not; either way, it wasn't Lestrade's professional problem.

"Well, would it be on an autopsy report?"

"If it was in his pocket, I can't see why it wouldn't be listed among his clothing and effects, which are listed here." He pointed. "It isn't. No mention."

"Maybe it fell out?"

"I'd have seen it if it fell out when he… landed… and either way, it should have been in the police report, since the entire hospital became a crime scene. And you know what, if it _was_ on the police report, I'm sure Donovan would have mentioned it to me."

"Donovan…?" Lestrade's face fell. "I'm going to bloody _kill_ her."

"Don't- she's done me more favours than you have, over this- no, wait." John had just seen Lestrade's expression; he had overstepped the line this time, and knew it. He sighed, and his tone changed. "I'm sorry, Greg. I didn't mean it like… that."

Lestrade collected himself for a few seconds before he spoke, a little hesitantly. "John, you lived with me for two weeks after… after it happened."

"Yes."

"And I went against Dawson's direct orders on that."

"Yes."

"You asked for _my_ blessings before you proposed to Molly, and I both gave her away _and_ was best man at your wedding, remember?"

"Yes."

"Threw you a Stag Do, as well, as I remember. During which I was the only one who voted against putting you on a train bound for Glasgow."

"… Really?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. So kindly cut the bullshit implying that we're not friends, just because I'm trying to protect your sanity, here, because that's _all_ I'm trying to do. I wouldn't be much of a friend if I didn't, now, would I?"

John ignored the question. "You're not listening to me, though. This is _wrong,_ Greg. It's a bloody mess, and I mean that literally. The injuries described in the report aren't consistent with a fall, aren't consistent with photographs, and aren't what I saw that day."

"John, you were knocked unconscious only a few seconds before you… saw it," Lestrade reminded him. "I wouldn't trust your memory too far."

"Thanks."

"Didn't mean it as an insult. Do you know how many witnesses remember things that didn't happen?"

"He fell perpendicular to the building," John continued regardless. "And don't tell me that I don't remember that, because…" _I will never forget it._ "Fell perpendicular, landed parallel. Bodies can… bounce on impact… but not spin ninety degrees like that. And not to be indelicate, but while there was a lot of blood, I'd expect there to be more… his head seemed largely undamaged… and no evidence of voiding. Not there, and not in the autopsy report either. Violent death. Nearly always happens, Greg. I've never known it not to."

Lestrade flinched. That had never before occurred to him.

"So now, where's Sherlock's mobile phone? We know he had it on him when he was on the roof. He was talking to me on it, a few seconds before he…" John swallowed hard.

"I know," Lestrade's tones were gentle again; John wasn't the only one who was still raw about the details of "it."

"So where is it now?"

Lestrade shrugged, trying a little bit too hard to remain nonchalant. "I haven't the faintest," he replied. "I don't remember ever seeing the police report, and I certainly didn't see any of… the evidence. Gregson's team took care of that case."

"Can you ask Gregson, then?"

"No, I can't," was the prompt response. "I know you and Donovan are all keen on this business, and think it's all very clever. I could get fired over this. And Gregson. And Donovan. And for what? And it's not as if Gregson would be likely to remember all those details anyway, it was nearly three years ago."

John's face twitched; he was deep in thought. "Okay," he muttered, pulling out his own phone and running through his phone book.

"What-"

"Hang on, just shut up for a second."

Lestrade waited while John held the phone to his ear; he could hear the soft purr of an open line. Otherwise, there was silence for a couple of minutes, and finally, John hung up.

"What was that?"

"That was Sherlock's phone. It's ringing."

This came out in such significant tones that Lestrade felt sure that John considered it to be a bombshell. The only problem was, he had no idea why. He shrugged. "Okay, it's Sherlock's phone and it's ringing, so what?"

"So Sherlock's been dead for two and a half years, Greg, and his number is still _ringing_?"

"Maybe the number was reallocated."

John shook his head. "It rang twenty times. Nobody's phone rings _twenty_ times- except Sherlock's. He had that tweaked on purpose when he bought it- he was so paranoid that he'd miss a call…" he trailed, off, thinking hard for a few anxious moments in silence. "The phone's GPS enabled. Can I borrow your computer?"

"John, please- look, yes. Okay. But for God's sake, what's this going to accomplish?"

"Two things," John told Lestrade as he went to fetch his laptop. "It's going to accomplish us finding out where the phone is now. And I hope it's going to accomplish us finding out _who_ has it now."

Lestrade stopped arguing, returning with the laptop and setting it up. In a way, the man was right. Not knowing was way worse than… any of the horrible details. Lestrade had been on the homicide squad, and liaised with far too many grieving families, to believe otherwise. _I'd prefer you to find my child dead, than not ever find them at all._

"You're going to need a password to get into this," he reminded John, who laughed a little. In life, Sherlock Holmes had been amazingly inconsistent in the knowledge he held, and that which he didn't bother with. Early in their stint as flatmates, he had realised that John had a good memory for figures and codes and passwords. From that day, he had created room on his "hard drive" by deleting certain details, and expecting John to know all of his passwords, PINs, blood type, bank account details…

"I don't think that will be a problem," he said. "It's CAugusteDupin. One word. Capital C, Capital A, Capital D."

Lestrade blinked, and asked him to spell it. "What's that mean?" he wanted to know.

"It's a detective," John explained. "A fictional detective, created by Edgar Allan Poe."

"Wouldn't have picked Sherlock to be one to read detective fiction for fun," Lestrade remarked.

"Oh, not without nitpicking the pieces to death, and driving me spare doing it. But he loved that stuff, really, even if I'm not sure he ever really grasped the idea of 'fiction.'" John was smiling. Some of his fondest memories of Sherlock involved his abiding fanboy adoration for Edgar Allan Poe. He'd even had a framed portrait of the long-dead writer on the far wall of his bedroom. It was so unexpectedly touching and human of him, to have an affiliation for Poe that he rarely had for any man living.

Lestrade typed the password in, as instructed. The last time John had used this website, he'd been hovering over Sherlock, not Lestrade; that had been years ago, and the password had been Rachel. The technology had improved some in that time, and it was only a half a minute or so before the GPS locator gave a meek little bleep of triumph and zoomed in over a map reference.

Over Lestrade's shoulder, John peered at the map, then swore softly. "Battersea Power Station," he murmured. "How… how the _hell_ could Sherlock's phone be there?"

* * *

"I don't think it's any use trying the boltcutters," was John's sage opinion. He looked the crooked iron gates up and down for a few seconds. "But I definitely think I could climb that. What about you?"

"You do realise this is all sorts of trespassing, right?" Lestrade bitched at him, arms folded.

"Yes," was the simple response. "Yes, I suppose it is. Could you climb that?"

There were perks to being a DI- it was very much a "sitting-down job" for most of the time, with underlings to do your dogsbody work for you and make you coffee. But Lestrade had an inner adrenaline junkie, too, and was never dismayed when called upon to drive like a maniac or scramble over a seven-foot iron gate. He took a step backward, sizing it up for a foothold. "Yeah," he finally said, though he didn't sound overly confident about it. "But John, seriously, what do you expect to find…?"

"I expect to find a phone, at the very least."

There was no point in trying to talk him out of things, and Lestrade wasn't totally sure he even wanted to talk him out of it anymore. He had to admit it, Sherlock's phone- and John was _sure_ it was Sherlock's phone- being in an abandoned power station was pretty intriguing. Just for a second, he wondered if it would have been better to bring a backup unit of officers, or at least some kind of a weapon. Just in case.

How the hell was he going to explain that one, though? There was no way he could justify bringing in a team to help him break into an abandoned power station, to placate someone who had apparently lost his mind. John had a scent, and he wasn't going to lose it, even if he wasn't sure what he expected to find at the end of it.

"John, use your common sense. Please. We have no proof the phone is in there-"

"GPS isn't proof?"

"Not in a court, no. And look, does it really matter who has Sherlock's phone? Maybe someone found it after the... whole thing. Maybe it's... someone..."

John turned to him. "No. If Moriarty took Sherlock's phone after he died, I'd be dead already," he pointed out.

"That doesn't mean this is safe. If you-"

John was a better climber than he was. Lestrade cleared the gate, however, with only minimal damage to his knees and a minor tear in the cuff of his trousers; he landed well enough on his feet on the other side, letting go of the clanging, protesting gate. "Right," he said, in tones that implied this was all in a day's work. "Well, that's at least one law broken, anyway. What now? This place is huge."

Huge or not, John seemed to know exactly where to go; the GPS map reference wasn't specific enough to be useful here, but he seemed well able to get along without it, leading Lestrade in a very definite direction along boardwalks and through corridors. Presently they came to a long, narrow room on the western side, where light filtered through filthy-paned windows and threw soft beams onto the debris on the floor. A hollow room, strangely sterile; it echoed back even their lowest of voices.

"So why are we here, John?"

John couldn't explain why they were there. He paced up and down quietly, searching the floor, the skirting boards; kicking aside the occasional discarded bolt or screw that had been left there over a decade ago. Lestrade watched him, but did not speak. Finally he stopped, facing the window.

"Of course," he muttered, the words amplified by the room. "Simple. The simple way."

"What? What do you mean, the simple-"

John had his phone out; he fumbled at the keypad for a few seconds. Then a pause, and both heard it: the familiar, traditional little trill of Sherlock Holmes' phone.

It _was_ there. And judging from the changing acoustics of the ringtone, it was in motion, coming down the outside corridor toward them.

Lestrade glanced across at John and saw that his face was grey, and his chest heaving. His right hand was fumbling at the back of his belt instinctively for a pistol that wasn't there. John had gone to Lestrade's that morning seeking an answer, not a phone; and he had gone to Battersea Power Station seeking a phone, and not the man who rounded the corner, slowly and stealthily, with that phone in his hand.

"Good morning." Sebastian Moran held the phone aloft; he killed the ringtone, as abruptly as a slap, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

Simultaneously, both John and Lestrade saw the gun he held down by his right side.


	10. Life Laid Down

 

_Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends._

**John 15:13**

* * *

"Moran," John said quietly, taking a few hesitant steps forward. "British soldiers don't shoot unarmed civilians. Or each other."

"Really? Obviously, you had a different war experience to mine." Moran spoke calmly, but he leveled the gun. "Inspector Lestrade," he said in harsher tones, without looking across at him, "if you're going for your phone, you're being very unsubtle about it. And I'd advise you not to try any further, unless you want a bullet in your head."

Lestrade, whose fingers had twitched instinctively for his pocket, now held both hands up with his palms out. "Okay," he said calmly, taking a step backward. "Okay, look. Just take it easy, and tell me what it is you want. We'll talk."

"Sherlock," Moran called over his shoulder. "Do you want to do it before or after I start shooting?"

"What…?" John blurted out. He took a few steps forward, before Moran cocked the gun again, which stopped him mid-stride. "What the hell are you talking about…? Oh, God, you- you can't possibly think that Sherlock-"

"So," the armed man was calling over his shoulder again. "It turns out that you're nowhere near as stealthy as you seem to think. This gun is fully loaded- and it goes off in five seconds. I'm still debating who to shoot first- didn't expect your friend Lestrade to be here as well. Which one do you want me to shoot first?"

"Why are you doing this?" John was still very quiet. "I don't understand. I met you twice. Never harmed you in my life."

"No," Moran agreed calmly. "You saved me, in fact. Funny how that happened- couldn't ever have guessed that Sherlock would pay Newell to try to murder me on _your_ shift."

"He _what_? What are you-"

"Hey," Lestrade broke in. "Look, just... stop it. Put the gun on the floor, before this turns into a situation that you can't control. Nobody's been hurt yet, and you're not-"

"Five," Moran suddenly announced.

"Are you insane?" John blurted out, fear twisting his tones toward the shrill. "Sherlock's _dead_ , Moran! I saw him-"

"Four…"

"Please, for God's sake-!"

"Three…"

There was no _two._ Instead, a firm step out in the corridor, and a soft, dark voice from the shadows.

"All right."

Then he that was dead came forth. Sherlock Holmes, coat, scarf and all, had his hands held up, palms outward.

Lestrade heard, through the thudding in his own ears, a cry from John. A sound he'd never heard from a man, woman or child in his life, and never would again.

"Well played." Sherlock was speaking to Moran, but his eyes were on John; he mouthed his name _._ "The location was a particularly nice touch. I see you've been stalking me for some time."

"Longer than you could ever imagine, Sherlock."

"Oh, I rather think I _could_ imagine it. You think I don't know who was holding the rifle at the pool all those years ago?" Sherlock's tones were thick with contempt. "Moriarty was no fool. He had himself a brainless henchman who was a crack shot-"

"So did you, for that matter."

"And he'd obviously put you to good use," Sherlock continued. "I told you I wanted to meet you. Forgive me for the opinion that making me guess _where_ you'd go was unnecessarily dramatic of you." He looked around. "But I'm here, and so are you. What do you want?"

"What do I _want?"_ Moran laughed, a low, growling sound. "Oh, God. You're expecting me to say I want money, or safe passage to a non-extradition country, or some other thing that you can cough up with a phone call or a bank transaction. I want Jim Moriarty back."

"I wish I could say that I was sorry to not be able to accommodate that request." _It's all right, John,_ Sherlock mouthed to his friend. Lestrade, from where he stood, could not see John's face, but he could see Sherlock's; he had an idea that John might be about to pass out. He took a step toward him to help. Moran briefly turned the pistol on him in warning and shook his head, and he stopped short.

"Moriarty is dead," Sherlock was matter-of-fact. "And the man's passing was no great loss to the world."

There was a brief metallic clicking noise as Moran shifted the gun in his shaking hand. "You said at his trial that he wasn't a man at all," he spoke unsteadily. "Do you remember what you called him that day?"

Sherlock paused. "Yes," he said quietly. "I called him a spider."

"Let me tell you about that _spider_. He was born in Dublin on May 28th, 1976. His father was Paul Moriarty; his mother's name was Aine. Three sisters, all older. Moved to London when he was ten. You didn't want to be an Irish boy in London in 1986; Carl Powers learned the hard way not to bully him. Jim went to school. He had hobbies. He liked reading, and painting, and classical music. Wore size nine shoes. Favourite colour was grey. Appreciated a good medium-rare steak. His middle name was Michael. People _cared_ about him. You killed a _man,_ Sherlock Holmes, not a spider!"

Sherlock shook his head. "I didn't kill him, Moran, and the proof of it is in your right-hand pocket. You think I would have gone up on that roof without something to record what happened? And you could only have taken my phone if you reached the roof and interfered with Moriarty's body before it could be discovered. Surely you, as a military man, would have noticed that the wound was self-inflicted."

"Noticed? Let me tell you what I _noticed_ that day..." Moran choked on his own emotion. "I noticed that the only man who cared about me after I came back from the Balkans was dead. I noticed his brains floating away on the concrete. I _noticed_ that when I went to lift him, the back of his skull came off in my hand- I... I thought I'd take him down the fire stairs, but by then the police had arrived and-"

"Jesus-"

"John, shut up," Lestrade snapped at him, but John had taken a step forward. Lestrade again made a brief movement toward him; again he was stopped short by the business end of the pistol.

"No, it's all right, Greg," John placated him in low, calm tones. "It's all right. I think I understand."

Moran laughed at him. Or rather, he hissed.

"Oh, but I do," John insisted eagerly. "Everyone's making a difference when they're deployed- in their own heads, anyway. You were a war hero. And when you came home, nobody here wanted to know about it."

Moran was silent, but John saw him swallow down on something.

"My left arm was in a sling for months after I was shot in Afghanistan," he went on. "I was in a Tesco once, and a woman asked me how I'd done it. I told her. She said I deserved it and worse, and that I was no better than a hired murderer. After that, I told people I'd broken my collar bone falling off a ladder."

Silence.

"What was it like for you?" he appealed. "Was it the looks people gave you? The fact that nobody'd even mention where you'd been for nearly twelve months? Or did they call you a murderer, too?"

Moran swallowed again. "Shut up. This isn't about-"

"And then- then one day, you met... this guy..." John continued. "And he was a brilliant, arrogant genius. _He_ didn't treat you like a murderer, or an invalid, or a basket case. He dragged you in from the cold and said, 'you, I've got a purpose for _you_ now.'" He shook his head. "And let me tell you, you'll never repay that, Moran. Waving that gun around won't change things at all. I know all about that."

For a moment, the two men looked at each other in silence and mutual fascination. A flash of understanding.

One flash, and then it was over. Moran's gaze froze; he shrugged John off as something of a meaningless interruption, and returned his focus to Sherlock.

"Whose hand was on the trigger that morning on the roof means nothing to me, Sherlock," he continued. "You can't argue your way out of this one on technicalities. Jim is dead, and he's dead because of _you_. He was a good man-"

"A good man?" Sherlock scoffed. "I'm afraid your definition of "good" might need some work."

"He was a good man… because he was good to _me…"_

"And Hitler loved his dogs," Sherlock returned flatly. "Jim Moriarty was a maniac. He killed people."

"Yes, he did. Have you ever asked John Watson how many people _he's_ killed?"

"Don't change the subject," Sherlock growled. But Moran turned his attention on John again.

"How many, Captain Watson?" he asked him politely. "How many victims? Five? Ten? Fifty? When you call them _The Taliban,_ or _The Tong,_ or write them off as a killer who deserved a bullet, does that mean it's all right?"

John was looking at Sherlock and took no notice of Moran's question.

"How many people John may or may not have killed is entirely beside the point, and I'm getting tired of this boring little conversation on the philosophy of war," Sherlock continued. The growl had faded; he was regaining his hold on himself. "John has _nothing_ to do with this. Neither does Lestrade. You've been looking for me- and now you've found me. I'm here of my own accord, I'm unarmed, I'm entirely at your disposal. As such, I see no need for you to detain these two any longer. Send them off. We'll deal with this matter between us."

Moran shook his head; he was smiling. Not a friendly smile; this was a savage curl of his upper lip, like the snarl of a rabid dog. "You still don't understand at all, do you?" he spoke quietly, reasonably. "A smart man like you, and you don't understand. I told you, I don't want anything from you, Sherlock. There's nothing you can give me. Nothing I want."

"I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with the sort of hostage situation where the hostage-taker doesn't want anything, Moran," Sherlock responded acidly, rolling his eyes. "And I'm sure I don't know how much more compliant I could possibly be about this, so I suggest you follow up your advantage while it lasts. Stop boring me and name your price."

"You can't buy your way out of this one," Moran choked. "You killed my best friend. And now, you're going to know what I suffered that day- because I'm going to kill yours."

And with that, he turned the gun on John. "Sorry, Captain Watson," he said. "It's not personal."

He pulled the trigger.


	11. Death and Hell

_And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him._

**Revelation 6:8**

* * *

Sherlock's cry of _stop!_ was drowned by the roar of the pistol, and a vicious thud as John was thrown onto the floor in a fine mist of crimson.

Sherlock darted forward; another shot exploded from Moran's pistol, but this one hit the ceiling, sending powdered plaster raining down on them. Sherlock stopped short and Lestrade threw himself down, holding the back of his head. Then, coughing in the cloud of white dust, he crawled over to John.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered under his breath. John, despite the widening patch of dark blood on his shirt and the flecks at his grey lips, was conscious; he was trying to sit up. "No- stay down-" Lestrade ordered him, giving him a brief and ungentle push. "Down. _Now_. And don't try to talk." He pulled off his scarf and wrapped it around his hand.

Sherlock, now at gunpoint and in check, snarled and hissed at Moran like a trapped animal.

"No, I don't think so." Moran shook his head. "You can watch him die from over here. Inspector Lestrade, if you so much as _think_ about calling for an ambulance, you'd better order two. And it won't be a torso shot this time-"

Sherlock lunged for Moran, but the distance between them was too great; Moran stepped backwards and reaimed.

Sherlock spat at him.

"Charming," Moran observed serenely. He was smiling. "Learn that in finishing school, did we?"

"Sebastian Moran, I swear I will cause you more pain and suffering than you could _ever_ -"

Sherlock was cut off by a small sound in the dark doorway behind him. Small, but significant; a short, sharp _click._ And then a serene voice spoke from the shadows.

"Sherlock, do get out of my line of fire." Mycroft's hawk-like eyes glinted in the half-light, and the hand that held the pistol was still. "Four steps to your right should do it."

"Mycroft-"

 _"Move,_ Sherlock."

Moran shifted his own weapon slightly and smiled, baring his teeth in a savage, wolfish way. Sherlock, staggering to his right until he felt the cool hardness of the stone wall under his hot palms, thought it a smile that had revealed itself for what it truly was- a grimace of fear.

Moran feared no man but Mycroft Holmes. It was a fear he had learned from James Moriarty, just as some wild creature learns to fear man from observing the fear of a parent. "Isn't a pen or a phone your usual choice of weapon, Mr Holmes?" he asked.

"There are always situations where a gun is mightier than a pen. Sherlock, you will go to John and render what assistance you can. Captain Moran, you will put your weapon on the floor."

Sherlock stumbled over to John. He saw how much blood Lestrade was kneeling in; how much was on the sopping scarf he was using to stem the wound, and how much was gushing over his hands.

"John- no-no-no-no- _no_ … _John!_ He's _dying_ , Lestrade!"

"He's _not_ dying, calm down," Lestrade told him evenly. "I have no idea how in God's name you're here, but you need to help me."

"What do I do- what…"

"I need to get to my phone. Put your hands where mine are- press down-" Lestrade forced Sherlock's hands down onto the warm, soaking scarf. Blood oozed up through the webs of his fingers; he felt the irregular surge beneath his palms as John struggled to breathe. "Do _not_ let up, no matter what. And keep talking."

"What do I talk about?"

"I couldn't care less- talk about the weather. Just keep talking, let him hear you."

John had his eyes closed; he made a monumental effort to open them, but Sherlock could tell by his unfocused pupils that he couldn't really see him. He swallowed. "John, I never intended for this to-"

"Not like _that_ , you idiot! Keep it light- yes, hi, ambulance, please-" Lestrade got up and stood a few paces away, the better to hear the dispatcher. Sherlock tried again.

"I can see from Lestrade's shoes that he's got himself a lady friend, and…" he was looking at the thick gold band on the third finger of John's left hand, now gummed over with dark blood. "And you and Molly… I had suspected you might be stupid enough to marry her at some point, but I didn't imagine that-"

"Sherlock!" Lestrade interrupted him again in a hiss. "I said, keep it _light_!"

"So I've written a little paper on cicadas that I thought you might be interested in having a look at," Sherlock continued. "They have turquoise ones in Australia, I've never seen those anywhere else- at least, not alive. They call them _Blue Moon_ , and Mycroft hates them. In fact I'm fairly confident that Mycroft hated everything about Australia, which I'm sure you can appreciate was one of the things I liked best about living there…"

"Sherlock," Lestrade pulled the receiver away from his ear slightly. "Is he still responsive?"

"I don't know…" John had opened his eyes briefly on hearing his wife's name, but that had been all. Sherlock tapped down twice, gently, with his thumb. "John, how many taps?"

John curled back the far three fingers of his left hand.

"Responsive," Sherlock called across to Lestrade.

"Good- just keep talking!"

* * *

"Put the gun down, Moran."

"Why?"

Mycroft sighed heavily. "If by that you mean, 'what is a good, logical reason for me to put the gun in my hand on the floor?', the answer is, 'because you've done what you came to do, and now the best thing to do to protect yourself would be to give yourself up peacefully.' If, on the other hand, you mean, 'what will be the consequence if I don't put the gun in my hand on the floor?', then the answer is, 'I'm going to shoot you.'"

Moran frowned deeply; he'd long lost Mycroft's train of argument, and the only thing that really registered with him was _I'm going to shoot you._ He shifted the gun in his hand. "You really want to take the risk that I won't shoot you first?"

"I can determine everything that a man will do, at least five seconds before he does it. Given that, I rather think that there's far more risk in this for _you_."

"I'm one of the world's best shots." There was a little shake in Moran's voice. "You do know that, don't you? Can pick the eye off a sparrow at fifty yards."

"Not without a sight, you can't," Mycroft reminded him. "And certainly not with a pistol. You were a sniper; I suspect that with a handgun you're no better a shot than any average gunman. And with a rifle, well..." he smiled. "You're _one_ of the world's best. You would have served Moriarty far better if you hadn't been foolish enough to let that be known. When military intelligence finds out we have a rogue ex-soldier who's rather a good shot, we train up people to balance that."

"I'm good."

"I'm _better_. Put the gun down. Now."

Moran flinched, but he shook his head. Mycroft clicked his tongue and sighed. "Moran, I very much doubt you'll go to prison for this, given the state of your mental health," he told him, in tones that were as close to "gentle" as he was capable of using. "You aren't feeling well. And you haven't really felt well since Kosovo, have you."

Moran flinched again. Mycroft knew that expression well. It was the same that he'd seen on the face of John Watson, the first time he'd said the words "post-traumatic stress disorder" to him.

"You've been in torment for a very long time, I think," he continued softly. "Since well before James Moriarty took advantage of you."

"He didn't take advant-"

"Oh, I rather think he _did_." Mycroft smiled ruefully, as though he and Moran had a charming secret between them. "And there's more than one meaning to that expression… isn't there, now?"

Moran frowned and took a step backward, blinking in confusion. "What's that mean?" he wanted to know. "Are you- are you calling me gay, or something?"

"I can assure you, we don't want you or your homicidal type in the club, either," Mycroft rolled his eyes. "You're horrified at being identified as James Moriarty's lover, when there's a man on the floor who might die because you shot him- carry on, Sherlock…" this as he perceived his brother had overheard that comment, in between a non-stop stream of telling John all about how aggressive Funnel-Web Spiders were, and how much he'd have loved Mycroft's reaction on finding one in his bathroom. _I don't know what all the complaining was about, John, it was in a jar..._

"Oh for God's sake!" Lestrade suddenly snapped down the line. "It's bloody Battersea bloody Power Station, it's just about the biggest bloody thing in London! How the hell can the ambulance be lost…?!"

Mycroft took a deep breath and a step toward Moran, who did not back away. "Come on, Sebastian," he said kindly. "It's over. Put the gun down."

"And then what?"

"And then I promise- on my mother's grave- that I'll do everything necessary to get you the help that you so clearly need. Counselling. Medication. There are options for you."

"If I go to prison-"

Mycroft shook his head. "You won't go to prison. I promise you won't. Not with a clear case of PTSD… they don't put people in prison for being ill. You'll be helped- not punished. But I can only guarantee that if you put the gun on the floor, now."

For a few seconds there was a pause; the only sound was Sherlock, behind Moran, still dutifully regaling John with the long and involved tale of his two nights with the God-Botherers of Southwark, and what he thought of that fool, Tait, the verger. Then, Moran relaxed his right hand; the gun clattered to the floor and skittered a yard or two. Mycroft sighed.

"I said _put,_ not _drop,"_ he said witheringly. "You're about as useful at following detailed instructions as my brother is. Take four steps to your left, please."

Hands raised in submission, Moran did so.

And this time, both Sherlock and Lestrade hit the floor in alarm as the kill-shot rang out. Sebastian Moran crashed to the floor with a sickening thud.

"Jesus!" Lestrade exclaimed. He was still on the phone. "Oh, _Christ_ … no, I'm fine- I'm not hurt…"

Mycroft put his own gun on the floor. Then he stalked over to where Moran lay in his own blood and turned the body over with one foot, inspecting the mince where the man's face had once been.

Torso shots were not Mycroft Holmes' forte.

"Quite dead," he responded, as if Lestrade had asked him. "Tell them."

Lestrade was trying to explain the sheer ludicrousness of the situation to the dispatcher when he was interrupted by a sharp cry from Sherlock.

"He's not breathing, Lestrade!"

"What?!"

Lestrade put the phone down on the floor and dropped down beside John again. "Keep your hands there, Sherlock- don't move them…" he took John's pulse at the neck, then tilted his head back slightly. "Shit," he muttered. "Mycroft, I need some help over here, since your brother is a _bloody idiot who doesn't know basic first aid_ …"

* * *

It was another eleven minutes before the EMTs arrived and took stock of who was dead and who was not. Mycroft got up from the floor with stiff difficulty and went over to one corner, hands held where they could be seen; he knew the police were sure to be right behind to arrest him. Sherlock did not get up so readily.

"Let these guys do their jobs, Sherlock," Lestrade told him, pulling him to his feet. "Great work from you, but let them take over. They know what they're doing."

"Have you got any idea how many stupid people are out there, Lestrade? How many people _don't_ know what they're doing?"

"These guys do. They're a hell of a lot better at CPR than me and Mycroft are, anyway…" Lestrade was watching "these guys" anxiously, as they crowded in.

"Are you sure nobody else is bleeding?" one asked him.

Lestrade nodded dazedly. It was only when he and Sherlock were being transported back to the hospital, and he caught a glimpse of himself in the ambulance rear-vision mirror, that the full horror of the question, and what it meant, came home to him.


	12. Broken Vessel

_I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel._

**Psalms 31:12**

* * *

Having a professional title like "Detective Inspector", and a badge to flash, was incredibly handy at times. Nobody at the hospital was otherwise prepared to tell Lestrade anything, since he was not John's next of kin- or any kind of kin. He left Sherlock in the waiting room to make enquiries; on seeing him finally return, Sherlock scrambled to his feet.

"What's going on?" he blurted out. "Is John all right?"

Lestrade decided to bypass that question. "Sherlock," he said in a low voice, "I want you to come outside with me."

"What…? Why? I _asked_ you-"

"He's in surgery, and they won't tell me anything, except that he's alive. Come outside with me. Now. We need to talk."

The hospital being designed roughly like a rabbit warren, it was practically a journey to the little courtyard garden to the west of the front doors. _Garden_ was the wrong word, though. You couldn't call several anaemic looking saplings in wire cages and a few weeds invading the path a garden. Lestrade said nothing on the way there. Sherlock trailed behind obediently until they reached a green-painted park bench. The only other person in sight was a nurse on her phone in the opposite corner.

His role in John's crisis being over, Lestrade's shock was now setting in. He groped around for the backrest of the park bench, tapping along it with his fingers like a blind man before he sank down. Sherlock, unasked, handed over a cigarette and lighter. After watching Lestrade make four failed attempts to get his shaking hands to light up, he lit up himself and passed the cigarette along to him. Lestrade put the unlit one in his wallet.

The last cigarette he'd had was the day before the pink-clad body of a woman named Jennifer Wilson had been found by some kids in an abandoned house in Brixton.

Sherlock lit another cigarette for himself. He did not sit down, however. Lestrade burned through the cigarette and was halfway through the second before Sherlock broke the silence.

"Lestrade," he said. "I'm aware of how this looks. I need you to understand that I had reasons for this."

"Okay."

"Good reasons."

"Okay."

"Reasons that I'm afraid I can't explain right now."

"Okay."

Silence reigned for a few minutes.

"So I'm curious," Lestrade coughed a little, "what's it like to attend your own funeral?"

"I don't know…" Sherlock faltered, confused and clearly wondering if this was a trick question. "I didn't go to my funeral."

Lestrade looked up at him. "Yeah? Well, I fucking did!"

"I had reasons-"

"Okay."

 _Okay_ had never sounded more like _shut up_ before. More silence; even Sherlock was vanquished for once, and bereft of anything to say. Lestrade finished his cigarette and ground the butt under his heel, completely ignoring the ashtray two feet to his left. He stood up as if to leave, and Sherlock lit up another cigarette.

And that was when Lestrade hit him.

An awkward punch, but a powerful one; it hit Sherlock between the nose and mouth. He'd not been prepared for it, and fell sprawling onto the grass. A choking, gurgling noise; then he raised himself on his palms, and suddenly spat out three teeth and a mouthful of dark blood.

The second the punch had connected, Lestrade's anger had flared up and then almost burned itself out. He looked at his hand, covered in his own blood and, he suspected, Sherlock's. Despite the sting in his knuckles, he felt almost… as if that hand didn't belong to him, or at least, that it had a mind of its own.

Sherlock was now on his hands and knees, but he wasn't getting up. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth onto the grass; he glanced up at Lestrade. Briefly, once. Lestrade had never seen a grown man so pathetically submissive in his life. He was no longer looking at a well-built, capable boxer and martial artist who was fifteen years his junior, and who could probably floor him right _back_ if he had a mind to. He was looking at a pale, sickly, bullied ten year old who was cowering because he knew that making eye contact was only going to make it worse.

Sherlock felt like he _deserved it._

Lestrade felt like he deserved it, too.

"I wish I could be sorry about that, Sherlock," he said in a low voice. "But I can't right now. Because right _now_ , I have to go inside there and call Molly to tell her that her baby might not have a father."

Sherlock, blood still streaming from his nose and mouth, looked up at him. Sudden, awful comprehension was dawning on his face.

"Yeah," Lestrade snapped at him. "Turns out, you don't know everything, after all. Imagine that."

"Lestrade, I-"

"You will stay _right_ out of this. Leave Molly alone. I mean it. If you want to do something useful, find out what's happening with your brother."

Mycroft had been arrested, and gone quietly; the last they'd seen of him was as he was awaiting a squad car back at the power station. So far as Lestrade was aware, Mycroft was going to be spending that night in a holding cell.

* * *

Lestrade stalked back inside to make his phone call; there was one he needed to make before he called Molly, however. He had, in his years on the force, made dozens of house calls to relay bad news. Sometimes, it was the worst news of all. And on all of those occasions, he'd had a woman officer beside him at the time. Sometimes it was Donovan, sometimes Halloran or Jones… but it was always one of them. If that kind of protocol was good for Scotland Yard's homicide squad, it was all right with him, too.

But he couldn't ask Donovan. _God,_ not Sally Donovan.

~~CfL~~CfL~~CfL~~

Melissa Brennan was well known for being incapable of finding her ringing mobile in the vast inventory inside her handbag; this time, however, she answered on the fourth ring. "Greg." She sounded relaxed. "We'll be home soon, and nobody's credit record has been ruined today."

"Mel, listen," he said in a low voice. "Something's happened. Could you please come out to Chelsea and Westminster hospital, as soon as you can get here?"

A short silence on the other end. "Greg, are you okay?"

"It's not me. John Watson's been shot."

"He's been _what?_ How on earth did he get- _"_

"And I need some help, please- Molly doesn't know yet. And I'm not expecting her to take it well, and there's a kid on the way."

There was a short silence down the line. "Oh God, really?"

"Yeah. I think she might need a… woman friend around for this one, you know?"

It was a bit of a sad thing, Lestrade suddenly reflected to himself, that Melissa was what passed for one of Molly's closest female friends, even though the two women didn't really know each other well. But then… the only alternative "woman friends" to Melissa were Mrs Hudson, and Harry. And Lestrade had a feeling that neither of them were going to be in any state to lend emotional support to Molly.

Melissa was still clearly trying to piece together what was going on, and the results were not eloquent. "But… is… John's going to be all right though… yes?"

"I don't know. Probably won't know for a while- he's still in surgery." Lestrade paused again. "Mel, do you remember me telling you about Sherlock Holmes?"

"Your friend, the one who committed suicide?" Melissa didn't use euphemisms like _passed away;_ it was something her personality clashed with and that her job had systematically trained out of her.

"Yes. Well, turns out he didn't commit suicide after all. He's here at the hospital with me."

"… Are you sure you're okay, Greg?"

"Oh for God's sake, I haven't lost the plot or anything," he snapped down the line. "I'm okay, and he's here, and he's definitely flesh and blood. I have no idea how he's here, but he is, and frankly, he's the least of my problems right now."

"Okay," Melissa sounded placating, which was only the more annoying; Lestrade rarely saw her while she was working, but he had an idea that this was the tone of voice she used when dealing with the real nutters. "Okay, listen. I'm coming," was what she said. "Do you want me to bring anything?"

"Some fresh clothes. I'm…" _covered in blood…_ "I need a change of clothes. Um. Bring Hayley, if she wants to come. I've got to call Julie and let her and Matthew know, too."

* * *

As much as Molly adored her husband, she had been single for thirty years before marrying him. Alone-time was never a problem for her. Although _alone_ was these days a rather odd choice of expression, and only applied if you factored out three cats. None of them seemed to sleep as much as cats were apparently meant to. Toby had just that morning decided to teach Casper the fine art of hunting- hunting Christmas ornaments hanging off the tree, that was- and all three cats seemed to believe that the wrapping paper Molly had brought out was not for wrapping presents in at all- no, it was for playing in and sitting on.

Molly had always enjoyed Christmas, even those Christmases when she had had little or nothing to really celebrate. She and her dad had made a lot of the season- for years, Christmas had just been the two of them together, having a marvellous time of it. She and John were planning on spending this year at Harry's again, but there was an element of "just us two"- their first Christmas as a married couple, and, Molly reflected as she wrapped presents and tried to shuffle Toby off the wrapping paper without offending him, it would be their last Christmas as a two-person family. Next Christmas, she'd be wrapping toys and baby clothes.

Happy thoughts- thoughts she was fighting monumentally to keep at the forefront of her mind. Because behind those thoughts, behind the prospect of Christmas and kittens and babies, all was not well. The manner in which John had rushed out of the house that morning- and the reason- were niggling at her.

If John ever found out that Sherlock… well. Molly had no doubt at all that that would be the end of things. And the last thing she wanted to contemplate was the end of things…

But John _couldn't_ find out that Sherlock was still alive. He _couldn't_ \- because that was something even _she_ didn't know for sure anymore. It had been fourteen months since she'd been out to Linwood and found it locked up and abandoned.

They said Mycroft had been transferred out somewhere- something to do with his work. But Mycroft's work was always shrouded in utmost secrecy, and in this case that included its location. Mycroft could be anywhere from Delhi to New Zealand, for all Molly knew. And as for Sherlock- she couldn't even begin to enquire where Sherlock was these days. Because Sherlock was supposed to be six feet under.

And who knew? Maybe he was, now. John would come back defeated and frustrated and probably not keen on talking it out, but he surely wouldn't come back knowing any more about Sherlock Holmes than he had when he'd left...

Toby nudged her fingers with his warm, leathery nose, as if to give her the hint that she'd been staring into space for quite long enough now, and should get on to more useful things. She scrunched an offcut scrap of paper up into a ball and threw it, watching Toby gleefully scamper after it. Casper, meanwhile, was looking at it blankly, as if to wonder what on earth she was throwing paper around for.

She had reached out for the roll of paper again when she heard the high little trill of her phone.

Molly, like Melissa, rarely knew exactly where her mobile phone was at any given moment. From the sounds of things, it was in her handbag this time, and her handbag was sitting on the kitchen bench. She got up with difficulty, nearly tripping over Smudge, and clambered over to the bench, burrowing through her bag and fishing the phone out just in time.

"Oh hello," she said genially, having recognised Lestrade in advance from his Caller ID.

There was a slight pause on the other end. "Hi, it's… er, it's me…"

"Hi, Greg. Is John with you?" she asked, a little intrepidly. It was certainly Greg on the line, but she rarely heard him sound so... hesitant. "I know he was on his way out to see you, but that was hours ago…"

"Molly, um. Listen. Yes, he's with me… sort of… I- I need you to come out to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital as quickly as you can get here. Please."

Molly swallowed down something that felt like a razor blade. "Is- everything all right?"

"We'll talk when you get here, love. I'll meet you at the entrance. I may- er- may look a bit of a mess, but I don't want you to panic, okay?"

"Greg, what's happened?"

"We'll talk about it when you get here. I don't…" He trailed off, but Molly knew him too well; she was able to fill in the gap. _I don't want to tell you this over the phone._

There was another long pause.

"All right," she said finally. "I'm coming. Greg, please, tell me one thing. Can you tell me one thing?"

"I can't promise that. But I can try."

"Is John alive?"

"Yes."

Molly cleared her throat. "John's blood type is O positive," she said in a matter-of-fact way. "No known allergies. Relevant medical history is in his wallet, if you… have it there with you…"

"We'll sort that bit out, Molly, don't worry about that. Just get a cab here as soon as you can. You… might want to bring yourself a change of clothes as well… toothbrush… stuff like that."

Another razor blade that she couldn't quite swallow down. "All right," she said at last.

"Good girl. It'll be okay, Molly."

* * *

Lestrade disconnected the call, feeling like the world's most heinous liar. There wasn't time to reflect on anything else, though; a voice broke into his thoughts.

_"Daddy!"_

Hayley Lestrade hadn't called her father _Daddy_ in over ten years. She and Melissa had just rounded the corner into the corridor; she'd caught sight of him and darted forward, despite Melissa's attempt to stop her.

"Hayley," she tried. "Your dad is-"

Hayley registered _covered in blood_ before Melissa could point this out; she stopped just short of launching herself at him, and covered her mouth in horror.

"Dad…?" she ventured in a small voice.

"It's not me, love, I'm all right," he tried to reassure her. Beyond that one glimpse of himself in the ambulance rear-vision mirror, and the horrified looks and comments of others, Lestrade had no idea about the true extent of how bad he looked; his daughter's reaction was quite enough, though. Melissa had faithfully brought him an overnight bag with a change of clothes in it; she laid it down at his feet and then leaned over to kiss him, finding a small spot on his forehead for it.

"What's happening?" she asked gently.

"Molly's on her way." Lestrade did not, for one second, imagine that Melissa was referring to anything or anybody else. "I haven't explained it all yet. I don't know how John is..."

"And Sherlock?"

Lestrade frowned and looked at her in confusion for a few seconds. "What _about_ Sherlock?"

"Well, wasn't- isn't- John a close friend of his? How's he taking all of this?"

Lestrade struggled with this for a few seconds. "I don't really know," he finally said. "I left him outside. But I suppose he's taking it okay. He doesn't... feel things the way normal people do."

Melissa glanced down briefly at her lover's skinned knuckles.

"Don't, Mel." Lestrade got up unsteadily, picking up the overnight bag. "I'm going to have a shower," he announced, "as soon as I can find someone who can tell me if they want to bag this for evidence or not. The last thing Molly's going to want to see when she gets here is… all this."

He turned both ways, trying to work out which direction to go, and wondering why every corridor of every hospital he'd ever been in had to look so similar. As he looked up the corridor to the west and toward the lifts, he caught a glimpse of Sherlock. At that distance, he still looked dark and imposing, though close up he was almost as bloodstained and disheveled as Lestrade. He was hovering just around the corner, vigilant and still. Lestrade had never seen the man look so alone before.


	13. The Truth

_But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth._

\- **Mark 5:33**  


* * *

Even after a near-scalding shower, Lestrade could still smell blood on himself.

Or perhaps it was his imagination; neither Melissa nor Hayley commented on it when he rejoined them. He sent Hayley to the cafeteria to get some coffee- she was seventeen now, but her father still saw her as a child who had no place in these sorts of grown-up affairs. He and Melissa went down to the foyer, where he'd promised to meet Molly. He still had no idea what he was going to tell her- his only information on how John was doing was that he was still in surgery, and alive.

"I can tell her, if you want me to," Melissa offered quietly, seeing how energetically he was shrinking from the upcoming ordeal.

"I've told people stuff like this before, Mel," he told her briefly. Julie had never been much in touch with his inner feelings. Even after a year with Melissa, he still prickled up whenever she touched on places that for many years had largely remained undisturbed.

A pause; Melissa knew when she was touching on those places, but she didn't always stop doing so just because he wanted her to. "It's different when it's someone you know," she told him.

"It's fine. Let me do it."

Both of them had been watching the cab rank outside the sliding glass entrance doors. Just then, both caught sight of Molly getting out of one. She had, as instructed, a small overnight bag hauled over one shoulder. Melissa ran down to meet her, Lestrade only slightly behind her.

"What's happened?" Molly blurted out, as Melissa took her bag for her and leaned over to pay the driver. "Tell me- tell me. Please."

"Maybe you should sit d-" Lestrade stopped himself and sighed. It wasn't fair to drag this out any further, and Molly didn't strike him as the fainting type, anyway. "Not good news, love," he told her in a low voice. "I'm afraid John's been shot."

For a second, Lestrade thought he might have to amend his view of Molly as not being the fainting type.

"He's in surgery," he told her, "and everything's being done that can be done, but… I don't know any more than that at the moment. I'm sorry. They won't tell me much else."

Molly's lips moved for a few seconds before the words finally came out. "But… but how?" she asked in timid tones. "Who shot him? Why?"

Lestrade took a deep breath. This was possibly the worst part of all. Molly wasn't a fool; even under shock, she could no doubt comprehend, on a factual level, that her husband had been shot. But how was he going to get her to understand that Sherlock Holmes was alive?

"Sebastian Moran," he told her. _Who_ had shot John was the easy part. "We- John and me- were lured out to Battersea. And it turns out that there was a bigger game being played than any of us suspected. Moriarty's dead. But Moran was working for him the whole time. And I don't know how to explain this, but-"

"Oh, God." Molly's words were muffled by her hands. "You've found Sherlock."

Lestrade stared at her in stunned silence for almost half a minute, searching her gaze. "Jesus," he blurted out finally. "You knew- you _knew_ Sherlock was alive..."

She nodded, trying valiantly to blink back tears.

"But- you- how long have you known for?"

"The whole time," she said in a small voice. "Two years, six months, and eleven days-"

"Jesus _Christ,_ Molly!"

Molly broke down; two years, six months and eleven days worth of tears in one wretched flood. "Sherlock made me promise," she tried to tell him through sobs. "I'm so sorry. He made me promise never to tell anyone…"

Lestrade shut his eyes; he looked grey-faced and haggard. "I can't believe this," he choked out. "I can't actually believe I'm hearing this. Oh, my God. My _God_. Your own _husband_ -"

"Greg," Melissa warned. "Not now." She neither knew Sherlock, nor particularly cared about him. Her priority was Molly; she had wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

Lestrade put his face in his hands for a few seconds, breathing deeply. "I'm going to find Hayley," he finally said quietly, but he was speaking to Melissa, not Molly. "Deal with this. Please. I can't. I can't do this right now." He was digging in his pockets; drawing Molly's hand toward him, he placed something into it and curled her fingers around it, then walked away.

Molly opened her hand. It was John's bloodstained watch, and his wedding ring.

* * *

Despite his personality and habits, it had been a long time since Sherlock had been punched hard. And even through ten years of institutionalised bullying at school, he had never before been hit hard enough to lose actual teeth.

It had been a while since he'd had emergency dental work, too. The cumulative result of both punch and dental work was that every inch of his mouth and jaw were practically screaming in agony; he'd popped a couple of pain pills and sucked it up. Because while Lestrade had made it extremely clear that he'd been banished to the far end of the department corridor, and was not to even look sideways at Molly without permission, he'd still been able to deduce what was going on with John- he was out of surgery, and not out of danger.

Even at his most self-centred, Sherlock could see that his own pain and problems really had to be put into perspective just then.

Still, he wasn't being very useful, sitting there nursing his aching jaw and brooding on what was going to happen next. He had no idea where, exactly, Mycroft had been taken. And if Mycroft had called anyone at all, it wasn't his little brother- Sherlock didn't have the means to bail him, in any case. Mycroft could fend for himself. He'd always been able to fend for himself.

Sherlock knew this, and assumed it to be true; still, he was surprised when his gloomy little reverie was broken by a voice close by.

"Well, that was rather inconvenient."

Sherlock looked up. For a moment, he was angry at himself. How had Mycroft got that close to him without him even noticing? He could have been _anyone_. Anyone, and with any intentions. "What happened?" he demanded without preliminary.

"Had a fortuitous reprieve, courtesy of a very old friend," Mycroft explained briefly, sitting down in the plastic mould chair beside his brother. His back touched the backrest of the chair; an instant sign to his brother that he was exhausted. Sherlock stared at him, and he sighed. "Not in person," he corrected himself. "But when certain government bodies give a person an order to target a known threat, and said person gets himself arrested taking out that threat, they don't leave him to cool his heels in a cell."

Sherlock frowned. "Your people told you to shoot Sebastian Moran?"

"Not specifically," Mycroft conceded, much as if he was disappointed that they hadn't. "But I can assure you that my people are _not_ disappointed that Sebastian Moran was shot. Nor am I."

"Nor I." Sherlock's gaze fell on the crook of Mycroft's left elbow, and he looked at his brother quizzically.

"As if you needed any further proof of the Holmes pedigree…" Mycroft rolled up his jacket sleeve and showed him the bandage. "O negative- worth its weight in liquid gold, I was told," he explained, almost embarrassed. "Don't ever say I don't do anything for you, brother."

"You're a universal blood donor? What- well, what am I?"

Mycroft was not in the slightest surprised that Sherlock, who spoke fourteen fluent languages and knew the capital cities and heads of state of every country in Europe, didn't know his own blood type. Nevertheless, and even under current circumstances, he couldn't resist rolling his eyes. "The same," he told him witheringly. "But don't even bother volunteering."

"What? Why not?"

"Because you need to have steady blood pressure and a normal heart rate to donate blood, and I'm afraid it's clear that you have neither at the present."

"My apologies for caring so much," Sherlock responded bitterly. Mycroft decided to brush off this comment; neither spoke for a minute or two.

"Sherlock," he finally ventured. "Why on earth didn't you tell me this was happening?"

"Apparently, I didn't need to," Sherlock retorted. "Did you get to Changi before me, then?"

"I was on the same flight as you."

This genuinely threw Sherlock- and he thought he'd been more or less aware of all of Mycroft's movements since he'd left Sydney. He stared at his brother for a few seconds.

"You were very preoccupied," Mycroft conceded. "In fact, I suspect that you were rather upset at the time. All the same, I handed you a napkin on the flight. Judging from your reaction, then and now, you didn't notice me at all."

Almost everything Sherlock had learned about detective work, he had learned from Mycroft. He had always been a good pupil, and in some areas actually overtook his master. But there were still many things Mycroft did far better than he, and one of them was the art of hiding in plain sight.

"The note in the airport lounge was from you, of course," Sherlock commented, brushing over what he hadn't known by commenting on what he had. " _If I make my bed in hell, thou art there._ Comparing yourself to God himself now, are we? Nice."

Mycroft pursed his lips. "I thought it only fair I gave you notice that I'd followed you," he explained, "and anything plainer could have been intercepted, and put us both in danger."

"Quite," Sherlock agreed. "And I suppose it was you who put the reference on the tunnel wall, and called up the homeless shelter people to come and get me?"

"You seemed to be quite cold, lying there."

"I was fine."

Mycroft got up with a sigh. "No, you weren't. I'm going to get coffee."

This was his way of asking Sherlock if he wanted any; Sherlock's way of indicating that he did was to respond with a vague grunt, and to kick at the floor impatiently.

* * *

Mrs Hudson didn't hold a key to Harry's house, but that didn't matter; when her knock went unanswered, she tried the front door and found it unlatched.

For Mrs Hudson, the news of what had happened was both purest pain and purest joy. The surrogate-son that she had lost was being returned to her, alive and unharmed. The other might die. On being told what had happened- and that there was nothing to be gained by her joining those milling around the hospital corridor- her thoughts had gone out to John's only living kin. One that she knew had a drinking problem, and who would surely not be coping well with the news.

She was not particularly surprised, then, to find Harry curled up crying on the living room floor. She was barefoot, and dressed only in a grubby nightgown; her knees were drawn up to her chin, and there was a bottle of whisky clutched in her hand. She had certainly been doing more than holding it; Mrs Hudson could smell it from the other side of the room. On seeing who it was, Harry cringed and sobbed, burying her face in her knees in shame.

"Oh, Harry, love, you're in a _disgraceful_ condition," Mrs Hudson scolded gently. She picked her way across the living room and plucked the bottle out of Harry's hand in a businesslike way, then took it out to the kitchen. She'd more than once had to confiscate certain substances from Sherlock Holmes in much the same way.

"John's dying, Mrs Hudson," she hiccuped.

"Nonsense," was the immediate response. She was pouring the remaining contents of the whisky bottle down the sink. "I was just on the phone to that lady friend of Inspector Lestrade's, twenty minutes ago. She says that John's out of surgery and holding on better than the doctors expected, and there's every reason to think he might be all right after all."

While not technically a lie- Mrs Hudson was honest to a fault- this was a very, very optimistic version of what Melissa had told her. John had survived surgery and was, somehow, holding on; he was in an induced coma and on life support. Molly was at his bedside. It was too early for a solid prognosis.

"Then," Harry sobbed, "then why- why won't they let me come to the hospital to see him…?"

Mrs Hudson frowned. "Who won't let you?" she asked her.

"Lestrade told me not to come in. Why won't he let me come in?"

"Because look at the _state_ you're in, dear," she murmured, making plans to have a chat with Melissa- nice, level-headed girl- about Lestrade's tact. If, of course, that was even what he'd said. Harry's judgment wasn't the best just then. "Do you think it's going to help anyone, you being at the hospital when you're like this?"

"But what if he dies, and I'm not there?"

"He won't die. You're being silly, now." Mrs Hudson brought a glass of water back in to Harry, and stood over her while she coughed and spluttered her way through it. Then she pulled out a handkerchief. "Dry your eyes and calm down, pet. You're going to make yourself ill, and that's not going to help anyone, is it?"

"I won't survive, Mrs Hudson. Not without him-"

"Stop it, Harry."

Mrs Hudson's tones had suddenly become so sharp that it even pulled Harry up in the midst of her tears. She looked up at her, still hiccuping.

"You come back to stay with me for a bit, love." She stroked Harry's hair off her sticky face. "It's not right for you to be here on your own, not when you're in a state."

Somebody, Mrs Hudson felt, had to make sure that Harry was eating properly and wasn't substance-abusing. And Lord knew she had plenty of experience with _that,_ and with someone who was even more stubborn about accepting help.

Besides, this was what John would want. And the last thing Molly needed was to worry in the slightest about her sister-in-law. She helped Harry to her feet; the younger woman leaned heavily on her arm for support. Too heavily. Her bad hip flamed up with sudden pain. She flinched, but worked through it without complaint.

"Now, I'm going to pack you a bag to bring with you," she told Harry. "Come with me and tell me what you want me to put in it for you, dear."

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson," Harry sobbed.

Mrs Hudson drew her close for a hug. "You're such a lovely girl, Harry," she told her. "I wish you didn't drink so much."

"So do I."


	14. The Doors of the Shadow

 

_Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?_

**Job 38:17**

* * *

Molly had been told all sorts of patronising things about what it would be like to see her husband on life support. _It might be a bit scary, dear. A bit of a shock. He'll be very pale, and will feel cold to touch. There'll be a lot of machines…_

She'd brushed off the kind, well-meaning warnings of the hospital staff absently. _Yes, I know what it will be like. I prepare families for viewings. Viewings of actual dead people. John isn't dead._

He was the same colour as a corpse.

A hue that was not quite grey, not quite blue, and not quite purple. Skin that, in only a few hours, had seemed to shrink down over his cheekbones; deep shadows, like smudges of charcoal, under his closed eyes. His eyelashes flickered slightly every now and again, and so did two fingers on his left hand.

She'd been warned about that. A neurological response. Good news, in a small way- his brain was still responsive, on some level. But those movements were entirely involuntary.

That twitching hand felt cold and rubbery, as if he were wearing latex gloves. The sensation of his skin against hers repulsed Molly; but she knew, all the same, that her husband was somewhere in there; and that something in there, under those trembling eyelashes, wanted to touch her hand and hear her voice.

For the first half an hour she spoke of anything and everything she could think of. Work. The cats. The _baby_ \- she had her eight-week checkup coming up soon, wouldn't it be lovely if he were well enough to go with her for that?

_Wouldn't it be awful if he wasn't?_

Did he know Sherlock was alive and waiting for him in the corridor? Did he know anything at all?

She had just exhausted everything she could think of to say about her precious slide cultures when a shadow fell on the doorway; she looked up and saw Lestrade standing there. He had a bulky backpack hoisted over one arm. At a glance, she thought that backpack looked strange.

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.

"Molly," Lestrade told her at last, "I had no right to judge you. I'm sorry."

"It's okay…"

He shook his head. "I don't understand," he said, "why you didn't tell anyone. But if you say you couldn't… I believe you." Lifting the bag, he checked over his shoulder and took a deep breath. "This is maybe the most ridiculous thing I've ever done," he continued, an embarrassed smile flickering at his lips. "But I've just been out to your place to check on the cats, and… here… I… well. I thought this might help."

He handed her the bag. It was heavy- and wriggling. She unzipped it. Instantly, Toby's fuzzy head- bat-like ears, huge yellow eyes and all- popped out. He gave a very indignant yowl.

Molly laughed and wiped her streaming eyes with the back of her wrist. "Oh, God," she said, juggling the weight of cat-and-bag in her arms. "Did you really put our cat in a bag and smuggle him into a hospital ward…? You did."

"I did, and he scratched the hell out of me for it, if it makes you feel any better." Lestrade smiled tiredly, then glanced over at the still figure on the bed. "I think I read somewhere about animals being… helpful… thought these two might want to see each other, anyway."

Molly drew Toby out of the bag and put him gently on the mattress, hands ready to stop him from walking anywhere near the padded wound on John's chest, or from knocking out the canulars in his hands and arms. Toby, for his part, seemed to understand. He sat down on his haunches, purring loudly and looking at John inscrutably for a good half a minute. Then, a confused, forlorn meow; he nuzzled John's still fingers with his nose, as if begging to be petted.

Molly gave an abrupt, racking sob.

"Oh, Molly…" Lestrade wrapped his arms around the shaking, crying woman. "Come on… come on. Shhh. Come on. It…"

But he couldn't finish the sentence: _It's going to be okay._

* * *

Down the corridor, Sherlock, hearing Molly's sobs, suddenly felt a painful tightening in his chest. Mycroft had just returned from a smoke break outside; Sherlock looked up at him. "Please," he suddenly said hoarsely.

The word itself gave Mycroft pause; he frowned. "Please, what?"

"Please. Go and see."

"Sherlock -"

"I need to know, Mycroft. Go and see. _Now_."

Mycroft, by extreme effort, neither rolled his eyes nor asked the bluntly obvious- _go and see what?_ He went back down the corridor, waiting a few minutes near the doorway to John's room before speaking quietly with Lestrade.

 _Not dead._ Sherlock let out a held breath, and was grateful that nobody was near enough to hear the catch in it. _If John was dead, Mycroft would be coming back by now._

_Is this just delaying the inevitable, though?_

It was several minutes more, and seemed like an hour to Sherlock, before footsteps nearby brought him out of his near-exhausted reverie. He looked up, expecting to see Mycroft, and saw Molly Watson standing there instead. Her eyes were reddened and damp, but she was no longer crying; she was pale-faced and serious.

And he had no idea what to say to her.

"You couldn't just let me be happy, could you?" she choked at last, her words tumbling out of her mouth in one desperate, indiscriminate mess. "It wasn't enough that you didn't want me… like that. You had to be horrible to me all the time, too. You had to take away everything that ever made me happy. Sherlock, what did you ever get out of hurting me? What did I ever do to you to deserve _this?"_

Sherlock felt his cheeks burning. "You did nothing, Molly," he faltered. "I never intended-"

"No, Sherlock." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter what you _intended_. I don't care what you intended. You've ruined everything. And I'll never forgive you for it. Ever."

"I-"

But Molly had fled in the direction of the women's toilets. Sherlock rose and took a step forward, as if to follow her; but by this time Mycroft had returned. He shook his head, then came forward to him.

"No, Sherlock," he said firmly. "Not unless you'd like Lestrade to hit you again."

"But I-"

"In answer to your question, John is in no worse condition than he was an hour ago. Mrs Watson is understandably distressed." As he had had a habit of calling Molly _Miss Hooper_ before her marriage, Mycroft had apparently decided to refer to her after it as _Mrs Watson._

Or perhaps, Sherlock thought bitterly, perhaps he was making a point.

"Lingering here in this corridor really is not achieving much of anything," Mycroft went on, in the sort of tones Sherlock had been trained, since earliest childhood, to pay attention to.

"What do you mean?" he blurted out in genuine confusion. "Where else would I be?"

* * *

"Interview commenced 9:37pm, December 19th," Gregson droned for the benefit of the tape recorder and camera. "Present are myself, Detective Inspector Tobias Gregson; Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade; Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan; the witness, Sherlock Holmes; and his chosen legal representative, Mycroft Holmes."

The interview room was almost twice as crowded as it would normally be. They'd run out of chairs, so Lestrade was standing in the corner, arms folded, while Donovan took her place next to Gregson. Lestrade was present only in a marginally professional capacity; he could not be kept away. He'd even managed to persuade Molly to take herself and the three cats over to his own place for the night, where Melissa and Hayley had promised to see that she'd both eat and sleep a bit. As for himself, he wanted answers- needed them.

Still, this was Gregson's interview. Lestrade sat through Sherlock's rights being read without offering a word- and neither did Sherlock, except to mutter "yes" as an assent to whether he understood them.

"Sherlock," Gregson was addressing both Holmes brothers by their given names, partly for the benefit of the tape, and partly because he suspected that Mycroft disliked it. "We first need you to understand that you are not under arrest. I'm sure you've committed at least one crime, but for the moment, we just want to investigate what happened on the day of your apparent death. Do you understand?"

Sherlock nodded.

"For the tape, Sherlock," Lestrade put in.

"Yes," he said obediently.

"What happened to James Moriarty?"

Sherlock frowned, as if confused by this line of questioning. "He's dead," he said simply. "And buried in St Mark's Anglican Cemetery under a tombstone with 'Sherlock Holmes' written on it." Seeing Lestrade's horrified expression, he hastened to add, "of course, you understand, no undertaker in the world would have buried an empty coffin. You can always tell by the weight."

"How did he die?" Donovan asked him.

Sherlock paused. He was digging around in his pocket and produced a phone, which he tweaked with his thumb and then handed over to Gregson. Gregson took it gingerly and gave him a suspicious glance.

"Moriarty had a hidden camera placed in the living room at Baker Street," Sherlock told them. "I found it, the night I was arrested…" he glanced at Lestrade, who just then was looking at his own shoes. "Of course, I'd have to be an idiot not to act on that. I rerouted the camera to my phone, and to Mycroft's phone and laptop. Just in case. Poor visuals, you understand- I couldn't exactly place it on my lapel. Still, the conversation is quite clear, and I hope it clears up any unanswered questions."

"This is the phone- that Moran had?" Lestrade broke in.

Sherlock nodded.

"How did you-? Never mind," he groaned. _Mycroft_. Mycroft had snaffled it somehow, in all the confusion and drama. Lestrade didn't think even _Sherlock_ had the coldness necessary to loot a dead guy's coat.

Gregson flicked the recording on; Donovan leaned in to look and Lestrade, hands resting on the back of Gregson's chair, did likewise. There was silence for nearly ten minutes, punctuated only by the tinny sound of the phone camera playback.

"Jesus," Lestrade murmured, flinching as the shot rang out.

"I think you could probably call that conclusive evidence of Moriarty's suicide, could you not?" Sherlock asked quietly. "If we could wrap this up as quickly as possible, Inspector Gregson, I'd be grateful. I find the subject matter wearisome, and both Inspector Lestrade and I have better things to be getting on with just now."

"How was it done, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked him quietly, speaking quite out of turn.

Sherlock stared him down for a few seconds. "Thoroughly and well. Can I go now?"

* * *

It was half past eleven when Mrs Hudson, who had spent the evening wrangling with Harry as she dried up and struggled to settle, was awoken by a knock on the door. A furtive tap; then a heavier, more impatient thud against the door frame.

She got up in annoyance - she'd _just got Harry to sleep._ And while she wasn't prepared to admit it, even to herself, grief and fear had taken its toll on her as well; she was only a little less exhausted than Harry. But as she drew her dressing gown around herself and went out to the hall, fear suddenly pinched at her. Had… something happened…? It was late. Too late for visitors.

Sherlock Holmes had never cared about acceptable visiting hours, nor kept to anyone else's schedule. He was like a cat; he came and went as he pleased, and when he was in, he demanded food and attention.

The night was cold. Even wrapped in his coat and scarf, he was shivering. Sherlock seemed paler than she remembered him- and thinner. Vapour puffed from his mouth as he spoke. "Good evening, Mrs Hudson," he muttered, eyes cast down. "Can't stay long. I need a shower. And some food."

"Sherlock Holmes!"

She slapped him, twice, across the face, so hard that her own fingers stung. Then she drew her boy close to her heart and burst into tears.

* * *

Sherlock had always been a devotee of logic. Logic was supreme. Logic was what made his world work.

But he knew that it was not strictly _logical_ that he should want to return to the hospital at one in the morning; it was especially illogical that he should return there to sleep in a plastic chair, when there was a warm, comfortable bed at Baker Street.

Some things were outside of logic. And he had always hated that.

Mrs Hudson hugged him and fed him; then, when he refused to stay any longer, she saw him off. _She_ understood, even if Sherlock didn't. Sherlock had once managed to fall asleep standing up- even the world's most uncomfortable chair wasn't going to faze him much. Like almost everything else that he did, he slept under sheer force of willpower. Comfort was a luxury he could do without.

By the time he returned to the hospital, Lestrade had gone home. Molly, Sherlock knew, was back at Lestrade's that night as well. As for Mycroft - who knew what Mycroft did when nobody was watching?

By half past two, he'd drifted into an uneasy, uncomfortable sleep.

* * *

"Sherlock, wake up…"

Sherlock struggled from the holds of sleep; Lestrade was shaking him. He blinked; the fluorescent lights of the corridor and the plastic hardness of the chair he was lying across hit him at the same time, and he remembered, with a sickening thump in his chest, where he was. And why.

"What is it?" he sat up unsteadily, wincing as the blood rushed to his head and sent the room spinning. It wasn't just Lestrade; Mycroft was there. "What's going on?"

"Up you get." Lestrade's tones were hushed. He helped Sherlock to his unsteady feet, then picked up his coat- Sherlock had been using it as a blanket- and started to help him into it, like he was four years old. "We're taking you to see John."

Sherlock glanced at the clock that hung over the doorway to the foyer and lifts. "It's quarter past four in the morning," he responded. "Visiting hours are-"

And then it hit him.

"He's dying."

The words sounded hollow, the inflections all wrong; almost as if someone else was saying them.

"We've just been advised that his condition has... deteriorated quickly over the last few hours…" This was Mycroft, and he was at his most gentle.

"Deteriorated?" he echoed. "Well, what the hell does that mean, Mycroft? Is that the same thing as 'dying'?"

Lestrade suddenly took his wrist firmly. "Sherlock Holmes," he said in low, serious tones, "you are a grown man, and you will start acting like one as of _right_ _now_. Are we clear on that?"

Sherlock swallowed, then nodded.

"The doctors think he might not last 'til morning. Harry and Mrs Hudson are both on their way. Harry's about hysterical already, and when she gets here she might have to be sedated, so the last thing we need in all this mess is you being uncooperative."

"And Molly?" Sherlock offered quietly.

"Taking it about as well as you can imagine. We've managed to convince her to give you five minutes, under the circumstances. I know that isn't long. I'm sorry, but you'll have to make do. Do you understand me?"

Sherlock nodded again.

"Right. Come on."

* * *

Over the previous two and a half years, Sherlock had often found himself pondering exactly how his reunion with his friends was going to play out. Of course, he'd always had an uncomfortable feeling that John might be... a little upset about things. But John had been upset with him so much over eighteen months, and hardly ever for long. He'd be angry. He'd calm down. He forgave so easily and so freely, and he'd do it one more time. And everything would be all right again.

In his wildest imaginings, Sherlock had never even considered that the reunion might be at gunpoint.

And there was one thing in particular that had been returning again and again to Sherlock's blunted memory, and caused him a rare spasm of pain every time it did- there had been no joy in John's expression that morning, when he had seen his best friend alive and well after so long. There had been confusion aplenty. Then there had been hurt, betrayal and anger. But no joy- none at all.

And more, far more, was at stake than John's feelings. Just how much had been a slow realisation for Sherlock; as Lestrade left him alone with his best friend, still and pale, in the nearby bed, the final wave of it hit him like a punch to the gut.

John was dying. And it was his, Sherlock's, fault.

John lay peacefully; there was a tranquility about him that could not be touched. The ventilator wheezed gently and rhythmically, forcing air in and out of his damaged lungs; the heart monitor beeped, irregularly but placidly, beside him.

There was no accusation, no reproach. Things were what they were. John was dying.

"So, um," Sherlock faltered, startling at the sound of his own voice in the sterile, hostile room. Again, as when John had been bleeding profusely under his hands, he had no idea what to say, or how to say it. Then, at least, he had an idea that John may have been able to hear him. Not so now. He mulled the words over in his mind again: _John is dying._

Repetition was not robbing that phrase of its horror.

No response from John. The ventilator whooshed along in its businesslike way. A series of pips from the one of the canulars embedded in the crook of his right arm. Sherlock suspected that the slight, repetitive twitch in John's fingers was a neurological response. But he couldn't help hoping that it was something more.

The heart monitor stalled for three seconds, then sprang back to life again.

Sherlock sank down into the nearest chair and looked at his best friend in silence for a minute or two. "Don't die, for God's sake," he rasped.

Another precious minute ticked by, but Sherlock was at a loss; he could not think of anything he wanted to say to John that could be said in only five… four… three and a half minutes. The only sound in the room came from the machines keeping John Watson alive. Finally, Sherlock spoke again.

"So I can tell by his watch that Lestrade's just been in here, to tell you that he's going to look after Molly and the baby," he said, in tones as conversational as he could muster. "I suppose he thinks he's doing the right thing. And I suppose it's expected of me to promise the same." He cleared his throat. "Bollocks, John."

For a second, Sherlock thought that perhaps John's heart rate had picked up a little.

"I won't do it," he continued. "The idea of me having any kind of _nurturing_ _role_ in the lives of your wife and child is utterly ludicrous. You once told me that I was so cold-hearted that you felt sorry for the bonsai plant in my bedroom."

There was no change in John's face - no hesitant, amused twitch of the mouth, no sigh of exasperation.

"I'm not looking after Harry, either," he went on, almost spitefully. "I refuse to give you any reason to suppose that giving up and dying is a remotely acceptable response to this whole… incident. There's nothing for it, John. You can't die. It's too… inconvenient. I won't tolerate it."

John's fingers twitched again. Hesitantly, Sherlock reached across and touched John's chill fingertips against his own. "In eighteen months, I never knew you to do a selfish thing," he muttered. "Don't start. Please."

No response. The room was dead air. Sherlock bowed his head in silence for a few moments.

Then footsteps in the corridor outside; there was a brief shuffling noise, and a shadow fell across the floor. Lestrade was in the doorway, waiting for him. "Time, Sherlock. Molly's on her way back."

Sherlock nodded. He got up, and turned toward Lestrade; abruptly, he turned back. His hot, dry fingers searched out John's again. "There's another thing, John," he murmured hoarsely. "Just quickly, before I go."

Then he leaned close to John and whispered something to him; something Lestrade couldn't catch. As the two men left the room, those whispered words seemed to linger behind.

_If you die, you will never find out how I did it._


	15. Chapter 15

_Weeping may endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning._

\- **Psalm 30:5**  


* * *

 

At first, there was nothing but snow.

Times that it was so cold that it burned. Other times there was just a relentless shivering and a white-out of nothingness, like a nuclear winter. There was no sound; there was no colour. There was cold, and there was whiteness. And that was all.

Then came the pain; overwhelming, all-encompassing. It was extinguished only by the occasional hot wave that rolled over him; a wave that flushed out even the worst of the cold. But that wave came too infrequently, and the cold did nothing to numb the pain.

The first sound that broke through the silent snow was the relentless, irritating _beep-beep-beep_ of an IV that demanded attention. A wheezing, hissing sound; something making a tapping noise nearby. After a time, there were footsteps and voices; both sounds muffled, as if they reached him through a blanket or a closed door. Then the footsteps became sharper, and the assortment of voices a little clearer.

_"Called Mrs Hudson…" "Why the bloody hell did nobody tell me?!" "Here in half an hour…" "Can't tell you any more than that…" "No, I'm fine, I'm really all right…" "Keeping her on the wagon…" "Won't talk to anyone, Mycroft…"_

Some voices were a total loss to him; one especially. A man, who kept talking in obtuse medical terms that only his patient, though he didn't realise it, could really understand. There were two words that kept intruding into the fog: _sepsis_ and _splenectomy._

Those words were important, he felt sure. They meant something _very important_ \- but he struggled to remember what, and gave up, time and again, exhausted.

Several voices outside in the corridor were those that he knew- but could not place. The soft tones of a troubled woman- Molly. _That_ one he knew immediately. Another woman who cried, quietly and often. And a man who spoke rarely; when he did, it was in a hushed, polished baritone.

The warmth stole back gradually into his body, and with it came sensations that reached beyond that overwhelming, chilling pain. Scratchy blanket itching at his legs. Hard mattress underneath him. A bitter, clinical sort of smell; it was interspersed every now and again with the sour stench of surgical spirits. The back of his hand stung, and so did the crook of his right elbow. His chin itched; his mouth and throat were painfully dry, and nothing eased this.

Every now and again, the pain in his chest worsened; the burning would return, and then there was another smell, sickly-sweet.

During the worst of this, there was often a warm hand in his. Molly's hand.

* * *

It was three full days after that first flicker of consciousness before the doctor could assure Molly that John could see her, and that he could finally understand what he saw. It was the early hours of the morning; but neither the seriously ill nor those who watch over them pay much attention to time. She went to his darkened room, and at her touch, his eyes flickered open.

At first, he didn't speak; but there was a slow dawn of recognition on his face.

"Happy New Year," she choked, then laughed a little through her tears. He smiled back, giving her hand a weak squeeze. He was pulling at the oxygen mask weakly with his other hand; she pulled it down for him.

"Sorry," he said. "Bad timing."

"There's never any good timing for you to do _that_ to me!" She drew his hand closer to her and smothered his palm in kisses. "We thought we'd lost you," she murmured. "Twice…"

It had been touch-and-go, again, on Christmas night. Infection had set in without mercy.

"Not easily killed," he mumbled. "Ask Bill about that." He shut his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Baby?"

"Baby's fine. I'm fine. We're fine."

"Moran shot me," he murmured, clearly struggling to understand what had happened to him that morning. "What about the others? Are the others okay?"

"Yes, they're fine, John. You were the only one hurt." Molly had no interest in this conversation with John just now; all she wanted to do was sit by his bedside and soothe him back to sleep again. But then, she couldn't expect that John would find himself in a hospital bed, with a serious injury, and not demand answers as to what had happened.

He hadn't mentioned Sherlock by name yet. But by _the others..._

"Harry?"

"She's staying with Mrs Hudson just now. They're both fine, John. Honestly. Everything's okay. Everyone's okay."

"What happened to Moran?"

"He's dead." Molly had an idea that John may have included Moran in his enquiry as to whether the others were okay. "Mycroft shot him."

John paused, frowning again; Molly could tell by his expression that he had absolutely no recollection of Mycroft being there at the site of the shooting at all. "Sorry to hear that," he said at last. "Why did he-?" He shut his eyes, and Molly watched in agony as the memory of why he'd been shot flashed through him. He took a deep breath. "Thought I imagined… Sherlock… but he _was_ there."

"Yes."

"I want to see him. Where is he?"

"I think he's at home in bed... it's four in the morning," she told him gently. She was still not one whit thawed out toward Sherlock Holmes- quite the opposite. But if John wanted to see Sherlock, or Harry, or Toby, or anyone else, she was determined to put aside her own feelings and make it happen. "Do... do you want us to call him in now…?"

John frowned again; she couldn't work out whether he was in pain again, or whether he was thinking something out, or both. Finally, he exhaled a breath he'd been holding. "The autopsy report," he said suddenly. "The one you gave me... It really _was_ someone else's. With Sherlock's name on it…"

"John, please, not while you're still-"

"You knew."

The words hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest.

"How long?"

"The whole time," she blurted out. "Sherlock made me help him… pretend he was… He wanted to protect you. So did I. He said Moriarty had people who would hurt you if I ever... I'm so sorry… I'm sorry, I… I'm sorry," she wound up weakly. "Please forgive me. I'm so sorry."

There was a long silence, and Molly felt John's fingers loosen their already-weak grip on hers. He shut his eyes. She supposed that he'd fallen asleep again, and was about to leave him to it, when he spoke again.

"Thank you," he slurred. "For taking care of him for me."

His anger would have hurt her less.

* * *

It was nearly eight o'clock, and still technically well outside of visiting hours, when Molly slipped out into the outside courtyard, bathed in the first sunrise of the new year. All was quiet and still; the world was still asleep from the revelry of the night before, and even the sound of distant traffic was hushed.

After the close air and warmth of John's hospital room, the winter morning hit her like a splash of cold water to the face. She took a deep breath, then another. Nausea was still vaguely pulling at her, but she didn't mind so much now. It was good. It was normal. It meant everything was… all right.

She looked up. Ahead and in the east, the rising sun hit ribs of clouds, turning them a bright hue of candy-pink. The full moon was setting palely in the sapphire sky to the west. _Why have I never seen that happen before?_

_Have I ever stopped to look?_

It was early days, yet- too early to call. John was going to be in intensive care for a lot longer yet, and perhaps months in the hospital. He'd had a partial splenectomy that had then turned septic, and would probably have difficulties with his immune system for the rest of his life. Things could definitely still go very wrong. She'd already been given That Talk.

But it was a new morning, and a new year. John knew. The truth was out; the hurt surely wouldn't last forever. Two and a half years of Sherlock's burden had suddenly been lifted off her shoulders.

The cold nipped at her fingers, and it was only then that she realised she'd forgotten her gloves- she'd been forgetting everything short of her own head this past couple of weeks. She'd managed to remember her phone this time, though, and fished it out of her pockets with numbed fingers, scrolling through for Sherlock's number. He picked it up on the second ring.

"What's wrong?"

Sherlock had answered Molly's phone calls with "what's wrong?" a lot recently.

"Nothing, um, he's… okay…" this last word barely came out; Molly was choking on it, and on tears, and on laughter. "He can talk now. And he said he wanted to see you…"

"I'm coming."

"There's no rush. He's asleep-"

But by then, she was speaking to a dial tone. Sherlock had hung up on her.

* * *

Sherlock's main dilemma- _what the hell do I say to him?-_ was solved for him. When he arrived, John was still asleep. A real sleep, he instantly saw; not that deathly stillness he'd had for the past thirteen days. He pulled up a chair as quietly as possible and sat down. He'd not intended to wake him, but John stirred, and his eyes flickered open.

"Thought you were dead," he mumbled.

Sherlock swallowed and shook his head gently.

"Why did you lie?"

"I'll tell you when you're-"

"Tell me now. Molly lied to me, too."

"She lied because I made her," Sherlock responded. He was struggling; he didn't want John to hate him for what had happened either, but he hadn't expected to ever have to put up a defence of Molly. To take the blame would be to admit that a fault occurred. "Don't… you know. Don't hate her for it."

"I don't hate her... hate that she lied."

"Moran- or someone else Moriarty knew- would have killed both of us if they had any idea I was still alive." Sherlock paused again, struggling with his words. Wrangling them into submission. "I'll explain it all in greater detail when it won't be wasted on you. Please understand that neither of us acted out of malice. It was only ever to…prevent..."

John winced; Sherlock wasn't sure at first if this was under emotional weight, or actual physical pain. Either way, sudden alarm bells went off in his head. "John…? What's wrong?"

"Sorry." John spoke through grit teeth. "'M all right. Bloody stuff's wearing off again…"

Sherlock leaned over the bed and gave the nurse call alarm button a series of sharp, urgent blasts. A nurse scurried in. Molly did not; Sherlock reflected that she must be further away, perhaps getting breakfast downstairs.

"Can I help?"

Young nurse- very young. Ink still wet on her qualifications. Sherlock both knew that she lacked the authority to do much at all, and hoped she had enough gumption to find someone who did. "I realise that a gunshot wound is not considered the most comfortable affliction one can have, but is all this pain really necessary? Go and get him something for it."

"I can't-"

"Sorry, you _what?"_

She took a step backward. Sherlock, even in his current mood, realised that he was possibly a few seconds away from being escorted out by security, and took a step back of his own.

"I can't," she repeated, "not without the doctor's permission-"

"Well then, kindly use some initiative and _go and get the doctor's permission._ And _don't_ tell me there aren't any doctors on duty in the intensive care ward of a public hospital. If I find one before you do, he won't be pleased with you."

"I'll-"

"Yes, you will. Hurry up. Why the hell doesn't he already have a PCA of morphine?"

The doctor, once summoned and arrived, agreed with Sherlock. He sent an order for the morphine pump. Sherlock watched quietly from the corner as it was being set up and administered- not without a scientific curiosity about the whole process. John barely made a sound throughout it all; the only sign that he'd needed the morphine in the first place was when his breathing finally slowed.

"Probably best you go now, mate," one of the technicians commented to Sherlock, as they double-checked that everything was in place. "I don't think you'll be getting much intelligent conversation out of him for a while, anyway. Who're you, a friend?"

Sherlock looked across at John. His dark-shadowed eyes were shut; he was back in that grim, drugged stillness of before.

"Yes," Sherlock told him. "Yes."


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue.

"It's fine, Molly. Let me do it."

The fifteenth of February, and John's last day as an inmate of Chelsea and Westminster. He'd just signed his discharge papers and received a forty-minute rundown of dos, don'ts (lots of the latter, very few of the former) and follow-up treatment from his treating doctor. Molly had arrived to take him home and had reached out to help him put his coat on.

"Are you sure?" she hesitated.

"Yes. I'm not three."

"I never said you were," she protested quietly.

John had by then managed to struggle into both arms of his coat; he paused, then reached out and squeezed her hand briefly. "I know," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap."

"Is everything… okay…?"

"It's great," he smiled- too broadly- and squeezed her hand again, this time so hard it was uncomfortable. "Great. I can't wait to get out of here, to be honest. And hopefully, I'll never set foot inside another hospital ever again." He paused and looked ruefully. "Except on, or around, the fourth of August. I'll make an exception there."

She smiled back, a little weakly. There was something chill underneath John's words. After all, before all this mess, he'd _worked_ at a hospital. And now, after having most of his spleen removed and with a compromised immune system, it was unclear if he could ever return to practicing medicine again.

She'd gently brought that up several times. He'd always changed the subject.

He hadn't called her _Lolly_ since the day it had happened. Once, he'd absent-mindedly called her _Sherlock._ He'd brushed it off lightly, but it had hurt her. And sometimes, when his guard was down, she'd glanced at him and saw something in his eyes that startled her. It hadn't been there… before.

There were mercies to be counted. John was alive.

But he was not the man she had married. She would never see that man again.


End file.
